Located on Lake Michigan's western shore with significant commercial developments along Interstate 43, the community is a suburb in the Milwaukee metropolitan area.

Much of the community remained rural, while Thiensville developed as a market town along the local railway, providing services to the farmers.

Mequon remained rural in the early 20th century but experienced significant population growth during the suburbanization that followed World War II.

In the early 19th century, the Potawatomi had a village in present-day Thiensville located on Pigeon Creek, north of Freistadt Road.

In 1832, the Menominee surrendered the land between the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan to the United States Federal Government through the Treaty of Washington.

[9][10] While many Native people moved west of the Mississippi River to Kansas, some chose to remain, and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by squatting on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers.

One of the oldest surviving buildings from this period is the Isham Day House, constructed in 1839 on the west bank of the river.

[12] In October 1839, a party of twenty German families from Pomerania, Prussia, settled the Freistadt community in the western part of the Town of Mequon.

[16] Joachim Heinrich Thien moved to the area in 1842 from Oldenburg, Prussia, and helped design a plan for the settlement that would become Thiensville.

[19] In the 20th century, Mequon and the village of Thiensville developed a close relationship,[20] with a shared school district,[21] chamber of commerce,[22] and library.

With a 1957 population of about 7,500, Mequon incorporated as a city under the terms of Wisconsin statute 66.0215, also known as "The Oak Creek Law," which had been crafted to prevent suburban towns from being annexed by other municipalities.

[30] Though much of the population lives in residential areas, approximately half of the land within the city's boundaries is undeveloped or farmed.

Clay bluffs are a geological formation characteristic of the Lake Michigan shoreline, and are found in few other areas of the world.

The city has some limestone deposits, including the Devonian Thiensville formation in north-central Mequon and the Silurian Little Menomonee River Reef District, which contains dolomite marine fossils.

[2] Before white settlers arrived in the area, Mequon was an upland forest dominated by American beech and sugar maple trees.

[32] As land development continues to reduce wild areas, wildlife is forced into closer proximity with human communities like Mequon.

Many birds, including chimney swifts, great blue herons, and wild turkeys are found in the city.

In 1929, the Nieman and Fromm operations broke their own record with auction sales of $1,331,679, making them a leader in the national fur industry.

After World War II, changing consumer tastes caused the farms to begin breeding mink in addition to silver fox.

Despite the growth of new industries, half of Mequon's land remains undeveloped and agriculture continues to play a significant role in the local economy.

The university's Arnold H. and Vern L. Moeller Rare Books Room contains a collection of over 300 items dating from the 15th through 19th centuries, primarily related to the historical development of Lutheranism, including texts by Augustine of Hippo, Francis Bacon, Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon.

[45] Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary hosts a private library of primarily theological materials, containing over 50,000 print books and an archive of over 400 publications from a variety of Christian denominations.

[67] The metro-Milwaukee area's Jewish community is concentrated on Milwaukee's upper east side and in the suburbs north of the city along Lake Michigan.

[68] There are two synagogues in Mequon: the Orthodox Congregation Anshai Lebowitz[69] and the Peltz Center for Jewish Life, which is affiliated with the Chabad movement.

[70] Additionally, Mequon is home to the Ovation Sarah Chudnow Jewish retirement community;[71] the Blane Goodman Funeral Service, LLC, which claims to be the Milwaukee area's "only Jewish funeral directors;"[72] and a Roundy's Metro Market with extensive kosher options, including Pas Yisroel bakery, Chalav Yisrael dairy, and a kosher fish and meat counter.

Fire Chief David Bialk has served with the department since 2006 and oversees a staff of approximately sixty firefighters, EMTs and paramedics.

The Mequon campus can serve as a stepping stone to a bachelor's degree, with some students completing two years of basic education before transferring to a four-year college or university.

An all-men's post-secondary theological school with a student body of approximately 125, the seminary trains pastors for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

The bus stops at five locations along Port Washington Road in Mequon, Monday through Friday with limited hours corresponding to peak commute times.

The Wisconsin Central Ltd. railroad, a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway, operates a freight rail line parallel to the Ozaukee Interurban Trail.