The City and County of Dénver is the capital and the largest city of the state of Colorado in the United States. Dénver is a consolidated city-county located in the South Platte River valley in High Plains, east of the Front Range in the Rocky Mountains. Downtown Denver is located east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 24 kilometers east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Dénver receives the nickname of Mile-High City because its official altitude is exactly one mile above sea level. The meridian 105°west of Greenwich passes through Union Station, being the reference point for the Time of the mountain.
The area of the city of Denver is much smaller than that of Colorado's second most populous city, Colorado Springs. In the 2015 census, the population of Dénver was 682,545 inhabitants, making it the 19th most populated city in the country. The metropolitan area of Denver-Aurora had 2,814,330 inhabitants in 2015, occupying the 19th position in the statistics of areas metropolitan areas of the United States, while the Denver-Aurora-Boulder combined statistical area had an estimated population of 3,418,876 and became the 16th most populous metropolitan area in the nation, also the second most populous city of mountainous states, behind Phoenix.