Anoka County, Minnesota

Anoka County (/əˈnoʊkə/ ə-NOH-kə) is the fourth-most populous county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, its population was 363,887. The county seat and namesake of the county is the city of Anoka, which is derived from the Dakota word anoka, meaning "on (or from) both sides", referring to its location on both banks of the Rum River. The county's largest city is Blaine, the tenth-largest city in Minnesota and sixth-largest Twin Cities suburb.

Anoka County comprises the north portion of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul statistical area, the state's largest metropolitan area and the 16th-largest in the United States, with about 3.64 million residents.

The county is bordered by the counties of Isanti on the north, Chisago and Washington on the east, Hennepin and Ramsey on the south, Sherburne on the west, and the Mississippi River on the southwest. The Rum River cuts through the county and was the site of many early European settlements. It was a common route to the Mille Lacs Lake, the spiritual homeland of the Ojibwe people. Father Louis Hennepin traveled the river in his first exploration of the region. The area became a center of fur trade and logging as French and French Canadian communities grew in Anoka and Centerville. Organized in 1857, the county's southern border eventually met Minneapolis and has become a predominantly suburban area since Interstate 35W was built. The county is home to destinations such as the Heights Theater in Columbia Heights and Northtown Mall and the National Sports Center in Blaine.