Albuquerque ( AL-bə-kur-kee; Navajo: Beeʼeldííl Dahsinil Eastern Keres: Arawageeki; Jemez: Vakêêke; Zuni: Alo:ke:k'ya; Jicarilla Apache: Gołgéeki'yé), abbreviated as ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the 32nd-most populous city in the United States. The city’s nicknames are The Duke City and Burque, both of which reference its 1706 founding by Nuevo México governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés as La Villa de Alburquerque, named in honor of then Viceroy the 10th Duke of Alburquerque, the Villa was an outpost on El Camino Real for the Tiquex and Hispano towns in the area (such as Barelas, Corrales, Isleta Pueblo, Los Ranchos, and Sandia Pueblo). Since the city’s founding it has continued to be included on travel and trade routes including Santa Fe Railway (ATSF), Route 66, Interstate 25, Interstate 40, and the Albuquerque International Sunport. The population census-estimated population of the city as 560,218 in 2018, it is the principal city of the Albuquerque metropolitan area, which has 915,927 residents as of July 2018. Albuquerque's Metropolitan statistical area is the 60th-largest in the United States. The Albuquerque MSA population includes the cities of Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, Placitas, Los Lunas, Belen, South Valley, and Bosque Farms, and forms part of the larger Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Las Vegas combined statistical area, with a total population of 1,171,991 in 2016. The Albuquerque Basin, and its adjacent metropolitan cities and municipalities, constitute the southernmost end of the Southern Rocky Mountain Front, the population of this geographic region, which incorporates other major Mountain West cities such as Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Denver, Colorado, is 5,467,633 according to the 2010 United States Census.
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