About Omaha

the 60th-largest metropolitan area in the United States in 2013 with an estimated population of 895,151 residing in eight counties. The Omaha-Council Bluffs-Fremont, NE-IA Combined Statistical Area is 931,666, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2013 estimate. There are nearly than 1.3 million residents within a 50-mile (80-km) radius of the city's center, forming the Greater Omaha area.

Omaha's pioneer period began in 1854 when the city was founded by speculators from neighbouring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The city was founded along the Missouri River, and a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earned the city its nickname, the "Gateway to the West." It introduced this new West to the world when in 1898 it played host to the World's Fair, dubbed the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. During the 19th century, Omaha's central location in the United States spurred the city to become an important national transportation hub. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the transportation and jobbing sectors were important in the city, along with its railroads and breweries. In the 20th century, the Omaha Stockyards, once the world's largest, and its meatpacking plants, gained international prominence.

Today, Omaha is the home to the headquarters of five Fortune 500 companies: packaged-food giant ConAgra Foods; the U.S.'s largest railroad operator, Union Pacific Corporation; insurance and financial firm Mutual of Omaha; one of the world's largest construction companies, Kiewit Corporation; and mega-conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway is headed by local investor Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, according to a decade's worth of Forbes Magazine rankings, some of which have ranked him as high as No. 1. Omaha is also the home to five Fortune 1000 headquarters: TD Ameritrade, West Corporation, Valmont Industries, Green Plains Renewable Energy and Werner Enterprises. First National Bank of Omaha is the largest