Davenport ( DA-vən-port) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 census, making it Iowa's third-most populous city, after Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Together with Bettendorf, Iowa; Rock Island, Illinois; Moline, Illinois; and East Moline, Illinois, Davenport is one of the five Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois. It is the largest city in the Quad Cities area, which has a metropolitan area population of 384,324 and a combined statistical area population of 474,019.
Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836, by Antoine Le Claire and named for his friend, George Davenport. From 1860 until 1980, Davenport enjoyed a long period of industrial and population growth, averaging yearly increases of about 760 people. Over that period, Davenport industries were diverse, from manufacturing locomotives, a major meat-packing plant, a Caterpillar loader plant, a historic movie-projector plant, to car and truck wheel manufacture. These and other industries left, and since 1980, population growth has been flat, hovering around 100,000 over the past 40 years.