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is the largest city in and the county seat of Sauk County, Wisconsin, located along the Baraboo River. As of the 2000 census, the population was 10,711. Its 2007 estimated population was 11,550.
Baraboo is home to the Circus World Museum, the former headquarters and winter home of the Ringling Brothers circus and now the largest library of circus information in the United States. This living museum has a collection of circus wagons, and occasionally hosts a parade of these artifacts through the streets of Baraboo.
The Al. Ringling Theatre is an active landmark in the city. This grand scale movie palace is larger and more elaborate than one would normally find in a town the size of Baraboo, owing to the financial assistance of the Ringling family. The Al Ringling home still exists and is maintained in good condition.
Baraboo is also home to the International Crane Foundation, an organization dedicated to the study and conservation of the world's 15 species of crane. Aldo Leopold's famous Shack and Farm, celebrated in
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.3 square miles (13.7 km²), all of it land.
Baraboo gives its name to the Baraboo Syncline, a doubly-plunging, asymmetric syncline in Proterozoic-aged Baraboo Quartzite. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, most notably Charles R. Van Hise, used the syncline to demonstrate that small-scale deformational structures in isolated outcrops reflect larger regional structures and established top-facing to occur inside elaborately deformed strata. These two principles sparked a global revolution in structural geology during the 1920s. The nearby Baraboo Hills are designated one of the "Last Great Places" by the Nature Conservancy because of unique rocks, plants and animals. Devil's Lake State Park, Wisconsin's largest state park, contains large areas of the Baraboo Hills. The hills near Baraboo were created by glacial action, and in some points poke up from the flat terrain nearby to from a stark contrast. Apparently some of these features were created when a glacial pocket was formed eons ago, or where the advance of the glacier halted, creating some of the unique features of the Baraboo hills. Pewits Nest is located outside Baraboo.