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Bloomington is the home to Indiana University. Established in 1820, IU has approximately 40,000 students and is the original and largest campus of the Indiana University system. In 1991, Thomas Gaines, a landscape artist, published a book, The Campus As a Work of Art, in which he named the Bloomington University campus one of the five most beautiful in America. Most of the campus buildings are built of Indiana limestone.

Bloomington is also the home of the Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington, the world renowned Jacobs School of Music and Kelley School of Business, the Kinsey Institute, and The Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.

Bloomington has been named a Tree City for more than 20 years. The city was the site of the Academy Award-winning movie Breaking Away, featuring a reenactment of Indiana University's annual bicycle race Little 500. Bloomington is also famous for its rock quarries, also featured in Breaking Away, which residents have been known to use as swimming holes (although nowadays would-be swimmers may have to deal with security officers issuing citations, towing their cars and (sometimes dangerously) contaminated waters at the quarries).

Bloomington has sister-city relationships with Posoltega, Nicaragua, Santa Clara, Cuba, and Luchou Township, Taiwan.

Arts & Culture

Bloomington has a rich theater culture, and is home to several professional theater companies, including Broadway Entertainment Company & Cardinal Stage Company. Bloomington also has several community and amateur theaters which include Monroe County Civic Theater as well as the Indiana University Dept. of Theatrical Arts.

Bloomington is home to the Buskirk Chumley Theater, which is a renovated 616 seat vaudeville and movie house built in the early 1900's. The theater has long been one of the busiest community orientated theaters in the United States

Bloomington is also home to a large folk punk music scene. The town is mentioned by name in many songs by Paul Baribeau, Ghost Mice, and other such DIY punk bands. Plan-It-X Records has a strong affiliation with Bloomington.

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www.bloomington.in.gov