Denver Map
Denver sits exactly where the plains stop and the mountains start, a mile above sea level, with about 729,000 residents in 2024.
Where is Denver?
Denver is in north-central Colorado, about 12 miles east of the first foothills of the Front Range, on ground that is flat in every direction except west. The famous elevation is literal: one step of the State Capitol is marked at exactly 5,280 feet. It is roughly 70 miles north of Colorado Springs, about 450 miles northeast of Albuquerque up Interstate 25, and some 540 miles west of Omaha across the plains.
Denver at a glance
| State | Colorado |
| County | Denver County |
| Population | 729,019 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 21 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Mountain Time |
| Region | West (Mountain division) |
Denver sits at No. 21 in the 2024 estimates, 486 people behind Nashville and 16,100 ahead of Oklahoma City. It leads the three Colorado entries, ahead of Colorado Springs and Aurora. That is about 12% of Colorado's 5.96 million residents inside a single municipal line. City and county are one outline here: Denver County and the city limits enclose the same 729,019 people.
Denver in Colorado
Denver is a consolidated city and county, so its boundary on the Colorado county map is one of the smallest in area and by far the densest — Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson and Douglas counties wrap around it, and a long annexed corridor reaches northeast through Adams County to carry the airport inside city limits. Aurora adjoins it on the east and Colorado Springs anchors the southern end of the Front Range urban strip. The Colorado state page covers the rest, including the eastern half of the state that most visitors never see.
Plains, Front Range and the South Platte
The city grew at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, where gold was found in 1858 — a poor site for a river port and a good one for a supply town. Behind it the Rocky Mountains rise abruptly, with the Continental Divide roughly 40 miles west along the crest; in front of it the Great Plains run 500 miles east without a serious hill. That break explains the weather as much as the scenery: storms spilling off the mountains meet plains air directly over the city.
Cities near Denver
Nearby are Aurora, Colorado Springs and, much further out, Albuquerque, Omaha and Wichita. The Mountain division page places Colorado among its neighbors.