US Map / Cities / Lincoln

Lincoln Map

Lincoln was a salt-flat village called Lancaster until Nebraska moved its capital here in 1867 and renamed it after the assassinated president.

Where is Lincoln?

Lincoln is in southeastern Nebraska, about 55 miles southwest of Omaha and roughly 190 miles northwest of Kansas City. Des Moines is some 185 miles east and Denver about 485 miles west along I-80 — from here the land climbs steadily for most of that distance without a single large city on the way. The Missouri River, which forms Nebraska's eastern border, is about 50 miles east.

Lincoln at a glance

Lincoln in Nebraska

Lincoln is the seat of Lancaster County and the second largest city in Nebraska after Omaha; no third Nebraska city is remotely close to either in size, and between them the two hold a majority of Nebraskans, which the Nebraska county map makes obvious — most of the state's 93 counties have a few thousand people each. The capitol here is a 400-foot tower rather than a dome, finished in 1932 and the tallest building in the state, and Nebraska's legislature is the only one in the country with a single chamber. The University of Nebraska's main campus is a few blocks north of downtown. See the Nebraska state page for the rest, including the western counties that keep Mountain rather than Central Time.

Salt Creek and the edge of the plains

The reason anyone settled this exact spot was salt. Salt Creek and its tributaries drain a basin where groundwater rising through ancient marine shale leaves salt flats and saline wetlands — rare inland habitat, and a resource worth hauling before railroads reached the state. Salt Creek runs northeast through the city to the Platte River, and it flooded Lincoln badly enough in the 1950s that a series of flood-control dams was built upstream, creating the lakes that now ring the city. Lincoln stands at about 1,175 feet on rolling ground covered in loess, wind-blown silt left along the edge of the glaciated plains. This is the eastern, wetter margin of the Great Plains: the tallgrass prairie ends and the drier country begins a hundred miles or so west.

Cities near Lincoln

Omaha is the nearest large city, with Kansas City, Wichita, Des Moines and Denver beyond it. The Midwest region page puts Nebraska in the context of the plains and the Great Lakes states.