Geographically, it is part of the Driftless Area, a portion of North America that escaped all three phases of the Wisconsin Glaciation.

Dubuque is a regional tourist destination featuring the city's unique architecture, casinos and riverside location.

While Dubuque has historically been a center of manufacturing, the local economy also includes health care, publishing, and financial service sectors.

In 1788, he received permission from the Spanish government and the local Meskwaki people to mine the area's rich lead deposits.

Dubuque became a center for the timber industry because of its proximity to forests in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and was later dominated by various mill working businesses.

The city's large Roman Catholic congregations led to its designation as the seat of the newly established Archdiocese of Dubuque.

Tommy John, who pitched for the Dubuque Packers in 1961, recalled that the town was "about 98 percent Catholic" back then.

"The people were friendly, everyone knew everybody else, and there wasn't a thing to do: no excitement, few restaurants or recreation choices, a decaying slum section.

"[12] A series of changes in manufacturing and the onset of the Farm Crisis in the 1980s led to a large decline in the sector and the city's economy as a whole.

[18] The downtown area includes a number of significant buildings, many of them historic, such as the Shot Tower,[19] St. Raphael's Cathedral,[20] and the Dubuque County Courthouse,[21] reflecting the city's early and continuing importance to the region.

The area continues to expand rapidly, with new subdivisions and shopping centers stretching out for miles from downtown.

The area's expansion has also led to rapid growth in suburban Asbury and exurban Peosta, Iowa, both of which adjoin the West Side.

[citation needed] Other important sites in the West End include: Dubuque has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), which gives it four distinct seasons.

[22] Spring is usually wet and rainy, summers are sunny and warm, autumn is mild, and winters are typically cloudy and snowy.

Many important Catholic religious leaders have lived in Dubuque, including its first bishop, Mathias Loras; Fr Samuel Mazzuchelli, OP; Clement Smyth; and Mother Mary Frances Clarke, BVM.

Health care, education, tourism, publishing, and financial services are all important sectors of the city's economy.

In 2022 Ben Jacobs of The New Republic wrote "Dubuque has weathered the economic transformations of the late twentieth century comparatively well.

Dubuque's waterfront features the Ice Harbor and, just north of it, the Diamond Jo Casino and Grand River Event Center.

The Colts are a Drum Corps International World Class ensemble and tour the country each summer to attend competitions.

The arts organization Voices Productions spearheaded a project to display large murals by street artists Gaia, Werc, and Gera and others in downtown Dubuque.

They began playing in the Tier I Junior A United States Hockey League in the fall of 2010 at the new Mystique Ice Center.

From 2001 to 2010, the Dubuque Thunderbirds replaced the Fighting Saints playing in the Tier III Junior A Central States Hockey League at the Five Flags Center.

Even after he ran into the fence on a 600-foot home run by the opposing team, later described as "Pure stupidity", Dan Lucey declared "This is a great day for Dubuque, Iowa.

In 2014, city government officials created four apps to monitor data related to water use, electricity use, transit patterns, and waste recycling efforts.

The City of Dubuque Sustainability Coordinator, Cori Burbach, stated this was "for educating citizens and implementing behavior changes that they control based on the data these applications provide".

[46] For most of its history, Dubuque has been mostly Democratic due to the large numbers of working-class people and Catholics living in the city.

Dubuque and surrounding areas are in the Cedar Rapids/Waterloo/Dubuque broadcast media market, which is monitored by the A.C. Nielsen Company for audience research data for advertisers.

On March 15, 2012, the Commonwealth Fund released its first Scorecard on Local Health System Performance; it ranked Dubuque second in the nation.

The airport recently had one carrier, Avelo Airlines which operated twice weekly flights to Orlando, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

[64] The Jule operates multiple bus routes and on-demand paratransit Minibus service throughout the city.