to
Update
is a city and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. According to the 2000 census, the city population was 69,291 and its metropolitan area had a population of 175,506.
Bloomington is the home to Indiana University. Established in 1820, IU has approximately 40,000 students and is the original and largest campus of the Indiana University system. In 1991, Thomas Gaines, a landscape artist, published a book,
, in which he named the Bloomington University campus one of the five most beautiful in America. Most of the campus buildings are built of Indiana limestone.
Bloomington is also the home of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Maurer School of Law - Bloomington, the world renowned Jacobs School of Music, the Kelley School of Business, the Kinsey Institute, The Indiana University School of Optometry, and The Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.
Bloomington has been named a Tree City for more than 20 years. The city was the site of the Academy Award-winning movie
, featuring a reenactment of Indiana University's annual bicycle race Little 500. Bloomington is also famous for its rock quarries, also featured in
which residents have been known to use as swimming holes (although nowadays would-be swimmers may have to deal with security officers issuing citations, towing their cars and (sometimes dangerously) contaminated waters at the quarries).
Bloomington has sister-city relationships with Posoltega, Nicaragua, Santa Clara, Cuba, and Luchou Township, Taiwan.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 19.9 square miles (51.6 km²), of which, 19.7 square miles (51.1 km²) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.5 km²) of it (1.00%) is water.
Bloomington is an area of irregular limestone terrain characterized by sinks, ravines, fissures, underground streams, active steam vents, and caverns. It is situated in the rolling hills of southern Indiana. The relatively varied topography of the city provides a sharp contrast to the flatter terrain more typical of other portions of Indiana.