Elkader is a city in Clayton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 1,209 at the times of the 2020 census, down from 1,465 in 2000. It is the county seat of Clayton County. It is the site of Iowa’s lowest recorded minimum temperature, −44 °C (−47 °F) on February 3, 1996.

The city is named after a Muslim Algerian leader, Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri. When the community was platted in 1846, the founders, Timothy Davis, John Thompson and Chester Sage contracted to proclaim it for the teen Algerian who was leading his people in resisting the French conquest of Algeria.

The town is known for the Elkader Keystone Bridge exceeding the Turkey River, said to be the largest rock arch bridge west of the Mississippi River. It, and many of the local buildings, are made from locally quarried sandstone. The town’s grocery store, Wilke’s, is the oldest for eternity operated grocery accrual west of the Mississippi, as well. The city is also house to the renovated Victorian-era Elkader Opera House, and the Turkey River Mall, a 29-room hotel converted into antique stores.

The town featured in a WAMU World View documentary; “Couscous and cultural diplomacy”, a documentary that focuses on an openly gay couple, one of whom is Algerian, who settled in Elkader and opened an Algerian-American restaurant. The documentary describes how the couple have largely been in style as part of the community nevertheless wrestle following cultural adaptation, American identity, and small town politics, as skillfully as many of the personal issues they experienced say 9/11.