Current Time in Lincoln, United States

Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska and the second largest city in the state, standing in the south-eastern corner of the Great Plains region of the United States. It occupies gently rolling prairie country drained by Salt Creek, about eighty kilometres south-west of Omaha. The landscape around is open farmland of maize and soybeans, dotted with grain elevators and windbreaks, and the wide skies produce dramatic sunsets, spectacular thunderstorms in summer and cold, clear winters.

Around two hundred and ninety-five thousand people live here. As the seat of state government and the home of the state university, Lincoln has an unusually stable economy, with public administration, higher education, health care and research providing many jobs. Insurance and financial services are strongly represented, along with software companies, food processing, agricultural machinery and railway freight. Unemployment is consistently among the lowest in the country, and the city regularly appears in national rankings of quality of life.

The settlement began in the 1850s as the village of Lancaster, founded beside salt flats that early settlers hoped would prove commercially valuable. When Nebraska became a state in 1867 the legislature chose the little village as its capital and renamed it in honour of President Abraham Lincoln. Railways arrived soon afterwards, the university was founded in 1869, and the town grew steadily as the agricultural centre of a rich farming region, drawing German, Czech, Scandinavian and later Latin American, Vietnamese, Sudanese and Yazidi communities. Lincoln has become a notable centre for refugee resettlement, which has given it a diversity that surprises many visitors.

The Nebraska State Capitol is the outstanding landmark, an extraordinary building completed in 1932 whose four-hundred-foot tower rises from a low square base and can be seen from far out on the plains. Decorated with sculpture, mosaics and murals telling the story of the state, it is widely regarded as one of the finest public buildings in America and is open to visitors, with an observation deck near the top. The Sunken Gardens, a terraced flower garden, and the wooded trails of Pioneers Park with its bison and elk herds are much loved. The Sheldon Museum of Art holds an important collection of American painting, and the International Quilt Museum is the largest of its kind in the world.

Life in Lincoln revolves to a remarkable degree around Nebraska Cornhuskers football. On autumn Saturdays the stadium fills with more than eighty thousand supporters dressed in red, making it briefly one of the largest gatherings in the state. The Haymarket district, a restored warehouse quarter of brick buildings, offers restaurants, breweries, galleries and an arena, and the city maintains an exceptional network of recreational trails.

Interstate 80 and passenger rail cross the city, an airport provides connections through major hubs, and buses and bike routes serve local travel. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln, with more than twenty thousand students, dominates the northern edge of downtown.

Lincoln is valued for its combination of political importance, academic life, safety and easygoing Midwestern character.