406 Area Code 🌍☎️

Billings is Montana's most populous city with 117,116 residents in 2020 and a metropolitan area of approximately 193,000 people, serving as the county seat of Yellowstone County in the south-central portion of the state. Nicknamed the "Magic City" for its rapid growth following its founding as a railroad town in March 1882 by Frederick H. Billings, a former Northern Pacific Railroad president, the city has experienced 89% population growth between 1969 and 2021 compared to Montana's 59% statewide increase. As the trade and distribution center for Montana east of the Continental Divide, Billings commands one of the largest trade areas in the United States, covering more than 125,000 square miles, and supplies services to the Bakken and Heath Shale oil developments. The city boasts more hotel accommodations than any area within a five-state region and serves as a gateway to major attractions including Yellowstone National Park (just over 100 miles away), the Little Bighorn Battlefield, Pictograph Cave (containing over 2,000-year-old rock paintings), Pompey's Pillar, and the Beartooth Highway. Billings is known as a premier convention, sporting event, and tourism destination in the Northern Great Plains region. Missoula is the second-most populous city in Montana with 73,489 residents at the 2020 census, located in Missoula County along the Clark Fork River where it converges with the Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers in western Montana at the junction of five mountain ranges. Originally settled from 1858 by European traders including William T. Hamilton and David Pattee, the city was founded in 1860 as Hellgate Trading Post and renamed Missoula by 1866, becoming a supply hub for settlers traveling the Mullan Road. The establishment of Fort Missoula in 1877 and the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883 catalyzed growth, while the Montana Legislature selected Missoula as the site for the state's first university in 1893. The city transitioned from its historic lumber economy to one anchored by the University of Montana, public schools, hospitals, and outdoor recreation, featuring 400 acres of parkland and hosting Montana's largest and oldest breweries. Missoula serves as the cultural and economic hub of the region, home to the Montana Grizzlies and surrounded by 5,000 acres of open-space conservation land with nearby Mount Jumbo hosting winter wildlife. Great Falls is Montana's third-largest city and county seat of Cascade County, with a 2020 census population of 60,442 and a metropolitan area population of 84,414 across 22.9 square miles in the state's central region, located just east of the Rocky Mountains and bisected by the Missouri River. Named after a series of five waterfalls on the Missouri River that forced the Lewis and Clark Expedition to spend 31 days portaging around a 10-mile stretch in 1805-1806, the city earned the nickname "The Electric City" due to five hydroelectric dams built at three of the falls: Black Eagle, Rainbow, and Great Falls. Served by Interstate 15 and located 180 miles from Glacier National Park and 264 miles from Yellowstone, Great Falls is a major cultural and commercial center known as the "Western Art Capital of the World," home to 10 museums including the C. M. Russell Museum and Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, and attracts approximately one million overnight visitors annually who spend an estimated $185 million. The city's largest employer is Malmstrom Air Force Base, and it also hosts the Montana Air National Guard and the federally recognized Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana. Founded in the 1880s by entrepreneur Paris Gibson in partnership with railroad magnate James J. Hill, Great Falls was Montana's largest city from 1951 to 1970 before being surpassed by Billings.