page_title: Duluth, Minnesota
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Duluth, Minnesota / Economy
caption_attribution_description: Middletown, Duluth, Minnesota, Lake Superior
context_page_description: Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County. Duluth has a population of 85,618, making it Minnesota's fourth-largest city and the center of Minnesota's second largest metropolitan area, with a population of 278,799. Duluth forms a metropolitan area with neighboring Superior, Wisconsin; together they are called the Twin Ports. The city is named for Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, the area's first known European explorer.
  Situated on the north shore of Lake Superior at the westernmost point of the Great Lakes, Duluth is the largest metropolitan area on the lake and is accessible to the Atlantic Ocean 2,300 miles away via the Great Lakes Waterway and St. Lawrence Seaway. The Port of Duluth is the world's farthest inland port accessible to oceangoing ships, and by far the largest and busiest port on the Great Lakes. The port is ranked among the top 20 ports in the United States by tonnage. Commodities shipped from the Port of Duluth include coal, iron ore, grain, limestone, cement, salt, wood pulp, steel coil, and wind turbine components.
context_section_description: Duluth is the major regional center for health care, higher education, retail, and business services not only of its own immediate area but also of a larger area encompassing northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin, and the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is also a major transportation center for the transshipment of coal, taconite, agricultural products, steel, limestone, and cement. In recent years it has seen strong growth in the transshipment of wind turbine components coming and going from manufacturers in both Europe and North Dakota and of oversized industrial machinery manufactured all around the world and destined for the tar sands oil extraction projects in northern Alberta. The Port of Duluth handles an average of 35 million short tons of cargo and nearly 900 vessel visits each year. 90% of the ports vessels are "Lakers," ships that ship goods exclusively among the upper four Great Lakes and are too large to transit the Welland Canal. 10% are "Salties", ships that can traverse the seaway all the way from the Atlantic Ocean.
  Duluth has attracted several new engineering firms including TKDA, Barr Engineering, LHB, Enbridge and Lake Superior Consulting, as well as new start-ups in various fields, including Loll Designs, an eco-friendly furniture company, and microbrewery Bent Paddle. Women's clothing retail chain Maurices is also headquartered in Duluth. In 1989, the workwear and accessories brand Duluth Trading Company was founded on a barge in the city's shipping district. The company moved its headquarters to southern Wisconsin in 2000.
  Duluth is a center for aquatic biology and aquatic science. The city is home to the EPA's Mid-Continent Ecology Division Laboratory and the University of Minnesota–Duluth. These institutions have spawned many economically and scientifically important businesses that support Duluth's economy. A short list of these businesses include ERA Laboratories, LimnoLogic, the ASci Corporation, Environmental Consulting and Testing, and Ecolab.
  The city is popular for tourism. Duluth is a convenient base for trips to the scenic North Shore via Highway 61 and to fishing and wilderness destinations in Minnesota's far north, including the Superior National Forest, Lake Vermilion and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Tourists also may drive on the North Shore Scenic Drive to Gooseberry Falls State Park, Baptism Falls (Minnesota's largest waterfall), the vertical cliff of Palisade Head, Isle Royale National Park (reached via ferry), Grand Portage National Monument in Grand Portage, and High Falls of the Pigeon River (on the Canada–US border). Thunder Bay, Ontario, can be reached by following the highway into Canada along Lake Superior.
  In 2006, a volunteer task force was formed to manage the spiraling retiree health care benefit obligations that were threatening to bankrupt the city. Mayor Don Ness called it "the single most important volunteer effort in our city's history." After reforming and restructuring the benefits and a court case that went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court, in 2013 the liability stood at an estimated $191 million. In 2014, the mayor announced "a full solution for the retiree health care issue that once threatened to bankrupt our city."
caption: SS Middletown beneath Duluth's aerial lift bridge
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "256", "Image YResolution": "256", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:03:27 00:01:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1130", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6603", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:04:22 19:24:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:04:22 19:24:41", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "76085/16384", "EXIF ApertureValue": "76085/16384", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "76085/16384", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "39", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2048", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3072", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "980", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "409600/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "768000/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}