MADISON, the capital city of Wisconsin, U.S.A., the seat of the State university, and the county seat of Dane county; in the "four-lake region" midway between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river, in the southern part of the State. It is on Federal highways 12, 18, 51 and 151; and is served by the Chicago and North Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, and the Illinois Central railways, and by motor bus lines in all directions. Pop. (1920) 38,378 (87% native white), 57,899 in 1930 by the Federal census, to which the university adds 8,o0o, and visitors an average of 2,000 daily. The city is built on the isthmus between Lake Mendota on the north-west (15.2 sq.m. in area, with a circumference of 25 m.) and Lake Monona (5.5 sq.m.) on the south-east. Farther south lie the other lakes (Wau besa and Kegonsa). On a hill at the narrowest part of the isthmus, in a wooded park of 14 ac. stands the State House, a beautiful building (constructed 1904-14). A mile west, along Lake Mendota, are the grounds of the University of Wisconsin (q.v.) covering i,000 acres. Many of the city's parks (3o8 ac.) are on the shores of one or another of the three lakes, and facilities for all kinds of water sports abound. Madison is the seat of the only U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in the country. Its seven libraries (State, university and city) contain a million volumes. Its six hospitals had in 1928 over 1,000 beds, and the
city is an important medical centre. Though primarily an educa tional and political centre, Madison has a large jobbing and whole sale business, a large retail trade, and diversified manufacturing industries with an output in 1925 valued at $33,236,639. Bank clearings in 1927 amounted to $186,200,000. The assessed valua tion of property for 1927 was $143,228,958.
A trading post was established on Lake Mendota as early as 1820, but white settlement on the site of Madison did not begin until it had been selected by the territorial legislature (on Dec. 3, 1836, after a protracted and acrimonious debate) to be the seat of Government, and had been named after James Madison, who had recently died. Earlier in the year a survey had been made, and a city laid out on paper, by Stevens T. Mason, governor of Michigan, and James Duane Doty, then United States district judge, who had visited the region in 1829 and recorded a tract including most of the land within the city limits. It was Doty's influence that largely determined the choice of the legislature. Building began early in 1837. The village was incorporated in 1846, with a population of 626, and chartered as a city in 1856.