Boise is the capital and most populous city of the state of Idaho as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it is the primary city of the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area.

History

It is widely accepted that the area was referred to as Boise long before the establishment of Fort Boise. However, the exact details of how the name came to be applied to the area vary in the available accounts.

Some credit a story told of Captain B.L.E. Bonneville of the U.S. Army as the source of the name. After traveling for weeks through dry and rough terrain, his exploration party reached an overlook with a view of the Boise River Valley. According to the story, a French-speaking guide, overwhelmed by the sight of the abundant river, yelled "Les bois! Les bois!" giving the area its name.

However, the name "Boise" may actually derive from earlier mountain man usage, which contributed their naming of the river that flows through it. In the 1820s, French Canadian fur trappers set trap lines in the region where Boise now lies. In a high desert area, the tree-lined valley of the Boise River became a prominent landmark. They called this "La rivière boisée", which means "the wooded river."

Economy

Boise is the headquarters for several big companies, such as URS Corp. Washington Division (formerly Washington Group International, formerly Morrison-Knudsen), Boise Cascade LLC, New Albertsons Inc., Albertsons LLC, J.R. Simplot Company, Idaho Pacific Lumber Company, Idaho Timber, and WinCo Foods. Technology investment and the high-tech industry have become increasingly crucial to the city's economy, with businesses including Bodybuilding.com, Crucial.com, MobileDataForce, MarkMonitor, Sybase, Balihoo.com and Microsoft. The call center industry is also a major source of employment; there are over 20 call centers in the city employing more than 7,000 people, including WDS Global, EDS, Teleperformance, DIRECTV and T-Mobile.