Fargo, along with its twin city of Moorhead, Minnesota, form the core of the Fargo–Moorhead metropolitan statistical area, which had a population of 248,591 in 2020.

[8] It is a cultural, retail, health care, educational, and industrial center for southeastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.

Historically part of Sioux (Dakota) territory, the area that is present-day Fargo was an early stopping point for steamboats traversing the Red River during the 1870s and 1880s.

[18] To a crowd of 30,000, Roosevelt spoke about his first visit to Fargo 27 years earlier, and credited his experience homesteading in North Dakota for his eventual rise to the presidency.

[20][21] The construction of two interstates (I-29 and I-94) revolutionized travel in the region and pushed growth of Fargo to the south and west of the city limits.

Since the mid-1980s, the bulk of new residential growth has occurred in the south and southwest zones of the area (for example in West Fargo) due to geographic constraints on the north side.

[24] Most older neighborhoods, such as Horace Mann, have either avoided decline or been revitalized through housing rehabilitation promoted by planning agencies to strengthen the city's core.

[26] Since the late 1990s, the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Statistical Area has consistently had one of the lowest unemployment rates among MSAs in the United States.

[27] On July 14, 2023, 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat opened fire on a group of police officers in the city who were responding to an unrelated traffic accident.

[29][30] Seasonal floods due to the rising water of the Red River, which flows from the United States into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, have presented challenges.

In 2008–2009, significant fall precipitation coupled with rapid snowmelt in March 2009 caused the Red to rise to a new record level of 40.84 feet, but again Fargo remained safe, in large part due to flood mitigation efforts instituted after the 1997 event and sandbagging efforts by the city residents.

Summers have frequent thunderstorms, and the warmest month, July, has a normal mean temperature of 70.7 °F (21.5 °C); highs reach 90 °F (32 °C) on an average of 12.7 days each year.

Today the city of Fargo has a growing economy based on food processing, manufacturing, technology, retail trade, higher education, and healthcare.

The annual Downtown Fargo Street Fair, a vibrant celebration that brings together an array of arts, crafts, and culinary experiences, contributes significantly to the city's cultural richness.

[49] West Acres Shopping Center is a large retail complex with over 120 stores, spanning approximately 950,000 square feet.

The Fargo Air Museum showcases aircraft from World War II and later periods, and it also hosts traveling exhibits.

[52][53] The Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre offers a variety of productions, including comedies, dramas, youth shows, and musicals, staged at a venue in Island Park, south of downtown Fargo.

The Fargodome routinely hosts concerts, Broadway musicals, dance performances, sporting events, as well as fairs and other gatherings.

The facility also hosts the high school wrestling national freestyle and Greco-Roman championships take place every year.

As recently as the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush carried Fargo as well as the rest of Cass County with nearly 60 percent of the vote in both areas.

Mitt Romney's winning margin in 2012 over Barack Obama in Cass County was 49.9% to 47%[75] while Donald Trump received 49.3% of votes in 2016 compared to 38.8% against Hillary Clinton and 11.9% for third-party candidates.

[76] In 2018, Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp achieved a 14-point lead in Eastern North Dakota even though the state as a whole soundly elected Republican Kevin Cramer.

NDSU was founded in 1890 as the state land grant university focusing on agriculture, engineering and science, but has since branched out to cover many other fields of study.

North Dakota State University's student paper, The Spectrum, is printed twice weekly during the academic year.

The city is also served by other publications such as Area Woman, From House To Home, Bison Illustrated, OPEN Magazine, Fargo Monthly,[77] Design & Living, and Valley Faith.

Local resident James Ingstad operates eight radio stations under RFM Media, including KBVB, KPFX, KLTA, KQWB-FM, KQWB-AM, KBMW-FM, and K233CY.

KNDS 96.3 FM is an FCC approved radio station, owned with a license held by the independent Alliance for the Arts, operating on the 96.3 frequency in Fargo, North Dakota and the surrounding area.

KNDS strives to provide the area with independent music not heard elsewhere in the FM radio community, while maintaining an emphasis on community/area partnership.

An Air National Guard unit and the Fixed-Base Operation Fargo Jet Center and Vic's Aircraft Sales are also at Hector.

The bus service operates routes Monday-Saturday, many of which specifically cater to the area's college student population, who comprise half of its ridership.