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Albuquerque (pronounced known as Bee`eldííldahsinil in Navajo) is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, US. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city populus was 448,607 as of the 2000 U.S. census. As of the 2006 census estimate, the city`s populus was 504,949, with a metropolitan populus of 816,811 as of July 1, 2006. In 2006, Albuquerque ranked as the 33rd-largest city and 61st-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. The Albuquerque MSA populus includes the city of Rio Rancho, one of the quicklyest growing cities in the US, a hub for many master-planned communities which are expected to draw future businesses and residents to the area.

Albuquerque is home to the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Kirtland Air Force Base as well as Sandia National Laboratories and Petroglyph National Monument. The Sandia Mountains run along the eastern side of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande flows through the city N to south.

Alburquerque was a farming community and strategically located military outpost along the Camino Real. The town of Alburquerque was built in the traditional Spanish village pattern: a central plaza surrounded by government buildings, homes, and a church. This central plaza area has been preserved and is open to the public as a museum, cultural area, and center of commerce. It is referred to as "Old Town Albuquerque" or simply "Old Town." "Old Town" was sometimes referred to as "La Placita" ("little plaza" in Spanish).

The village was named by the provincial governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes in honour of Don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, viceroy of New Spain from 1653 to 1660. The first "r" in "Alburquerque" was dropped at some point in the 19th century, supposedly by an Anglo-US railroad station-master unable to correctly pronounce the city`s name. Some New Mexicans still prefer the spelling Alburquerque; see for example the book by that name by Rudolfo Anaya. In the 1990s, the Central Avenue Trolley Buses were emblazoned with the name Alburquerque (with two "r"s) in honor of the city`s historic name.

New Albuquerque rapidly became a tidy southwestern town which by 1900 boasted a populus of 8,000 inhabitants and all the modern amenities including an electric street railway connecting Old Town, New Town, and the recently established UNM campus on the East Mesa. In 1902 the famous Alvarado Hotel was built adjacent to the new passenger depot and remained a symbol of the city until it was torn down in 1970 to make room for a parking lot. In 2002, the Alvarado Transportation Center was built on the site in a manner resembling the old landmark. The large metro station functions as the downtown headquarters for the city`s transit department, and serves as an intermodal hub for local buses, Greyhound buses, Amtrak passenger trains, and the Rail Runner commuter rail line.

The first travelers on Route 66 appeared in Albuquerque in 1926, and before long dozens of motels, restaurants, and gift stores had sprung up along the roadside to serve them. Route 66 originally ran through the city on a N-south alignment along Fourth Street, but in 1937 it was realigned along Central Avenue, a more direct east-west route. The intersection of Fourth and Central downtown was the principal crossroads of the city for decades. The majority of the surviving structures from the Route 66 era are on Central, though there are also some on Fourth. Signs between Bernalillo and Los Lunas along the old route now have brown, historical highway markers denoting it as Pre-1937 Route 66.