Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the most populous urban area in the state of Minnesota, United States, and is composed of 188 cities and townships. Built around the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers, the area is also nicknamed the Twin Cities for its two largest cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the state capital. The area is part of a larger U.S. Census division named Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, the country's 16th-largest metropolitan area composed of eleven counties in Minnesota and two counties in Wisconsin. This larger area in turn is enveloped in the U.S. Census combined statistical area called Minneapolis-St. Paul-St. Cloud, MN-WI with an estimated population of 3.5 million people in 2006, ranked the 13th most populous in the U.S.

To remind everyone there were actually two cities, people started using the phrase Dual Cities around 1872, which evolved into Twin Cities. Despite the "Twin" moniker, the two cities are independent municipalities with defined borders and are quite distinct from each other. Minneapolis, with its broad boulevards, easily navigable grid layout, and modern downtown architecture, has been referred to as the "first" (i.e. furthest east) city of the American West; Saint Paul, which sports narrower streets laid out much more irregularly, clannish neighborhoods, and a vast collection of well preserved late-Victorian architecture, is considered to be the "last" (i.e. farthest west) of the Eastern cities. Also of some note is the differing cultural backgrounds of the two cities: Minneapolis being affected by its early (and still influential) Scandinavian/Lutheran heritage, while St. Paul was touched by its early Irish and German Catholic roots.

Often, the area is referred to as simply "The Cities," both within Minnesota, but generally outside the metropolitan region, and even in the bordering states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. Areas of Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities are collectively referred to as "outstate" by people from the Twin Cities metro area. Today, the two cities directly border each other and their downtown districts are about 9 miles (14 km) apart. The Twin Cities are generally said to be in "east central" Minnesota. The Cities draw commuters from as far away as Rochester, St. Cloud, Mankato and Eau Claire.