Template:Wp-Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

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Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,605 at the 2020 census. Its ZIP Code is 53821.

Often referred to as Wisconsin's second oldest city, Prairie du Chien was established as a European settlement by French voyageurs in the late seventeenth century. Its settlement date of June 17, 1673, makes it the fourth colonial settlement by European settlers in the Midwestern United States, following Green Bay, Wisconsin, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and St. Ignace, Michigan. The city offers many sites showing its rich and important history in the region.

The city is located near the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, a strategic point along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway that connects the Great Lakes with the Mississippi. This location offered early French missionaries and explorers their first access and entrance to the Mississippi River.

Early French visitors to the site found it occupied by a group of Fox Indians led by a chief whose name Alim meant chien in French (dog in English). The French explorers named the location Prairie du Chien, French for "Dog's Meadow". Originally this name applied only to the plain upon which the settlement is located, but it was later applied to the city as well. The city of Prairie du Chien is located between the Town of Prairie du Chien and the Town of Bridgeport.