Mankato (/mænˈkeɪtoʊ/ man-KAY-toh)[9] is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota.

The population was 44,488 at the 2020 census,[6] making it the 21st-largest city in Minnesota, and the 4th-largest outside of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area.

North of Mankato Regional Airport, a tiny non-contiguous part of the city lies within Le Sueur County.

The U.S. Census Bureau designated Mankato a Metropolitan Statistical Area in November 2008.

[11] Mankato Township was not settled by European Americans until Parsons King Johnson in February 1852, as part of the 19th-century migration of people from the east across the Midwest.

The city was organized by Johnson, Henry Jackson, Daniel A. Robertson, Justus C. Ramsey, and others.

He had taken the name from Nicollet's book, in which the French explorer compared the 'Mahkato' or Blue Earth River, with all its tributaries, to the water nymphs and their uncle in the German legend of Undine...No more appropriate name could be given the new city, than that of the noble river at whose mouth it is located.

[13] Frederick Webb Hodge, in the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, said the town was named after the older of the two like-named chiefs of the Mdewakanton nation of the Santee Dakota, whose village stood on or near the site of the present town.

Ishtakhaba, also known as Chief Sleepy Eye, of the Sisseton band, was said to have directed settlers to this location.

[15][16] A USV military tribunal reviewed nearly 500 cases, of which 303 received a death sentence, but President Lincoln requested the court files.

Episcopal Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple urged leniency to which Lincoln responded that he had to take a balanced approach.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the event a large granite marker was erected that stood at the site until 1971, when the city took it down.

The Blue Earth County Library, Main street and Reconciliation Park cover the immediate vicinity of the execution site.

[4] The Minnesota, Blue Earth, and Le Sueur rivers all flow through or near the city.

Mankato has a humid continental climate, type Dfa (hot summer subtype).

Dangerously low wind-chill temperatures are a significant hazard during the winter months, as Arctic air outbreaks rush into the area from Canada, borne on high winds; this can bring about ground blizzard conditions, especially in nearby rural areas.

Summers are warm, with occasional but usually brief hot, humid periods, often interspersed with pushes of cooler air from Canada, often preceded by showers and thunderstorms.

Mankato's average wettest months are from June to August, with frequent thunderstorm activity.

Mankato lies on the northern fringe of the central United States’ main tornado belt, with lower risk than in Iowa and Missouri to the south.

On August 17, 1946, tornadoes struck southwestern areas of Mankato and the town of Wells to the southeast, killing 11 people.

The protagonist of Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street, Carol Milford, is a former Mankato resident.

Schmidt House at 315 South Broad Street, as now marked by a small plaque in front of the building.

[40][41] In 2016 Food & Wine credited a 1930 Mankato church congregation cookbook as the first written record of a hotdish recipe.