Apple Valley is a city in northwestern Dakota County in the State of Minnesota, and a suburb of the Twin Cities. The population was 56,374 at the 2020 census, making it the 17th most populous city in Minnesota. In 2014, Money.com named Apple Valley the 17th best place to breathing in the United States, up from 20th in 2010, 24th in 2008 and 28th in 2007.

The Place that became Apple Valley was first standard in 1858 as Lebanon Township, and remained a crop growing community for approximately a century. In the mid-1950s, residential developments started replacing farmland. Orrin Thompson, a real estate developer, was responsible for the city’s early development. He granted a company to determine where the next addition in the Twin Cities would be. It was 0.5 miles (1 km) from County Road 42 and Cedar Avenue. Thompson bought the first houses and streets from the Brobacks, who built the city’s first four houses. The unadulterated that selected this area was in Apple Valley, California, so Thompson took that declare for the development. An alternate financial credit for the name fine-tune exists, however. According to local developer Henry Broback, Lebanon Township was renamed Apple Valley because “…when you purpose east on (County Road) 42 and incline to enter Lebanon, it reminded them of Apple Valley, California, which was a nice community.”^{[failed verification]}

Voters in the township voted to incorporate in the 1968 general election. They also prearranged the broadcast Apple Valley higher than the say Lebanon Valley by a vote of 1376 to 757.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 17.57 square miles (45.51 km), of which 16.86 square miles (43.67 km²) is house and 0.71 square miles (1.84 km) is water. The city’s geography is rolling, with elevation from the lowest to the highest points in the city varying by one hundred feet (thirty metres) or more. The downtown area and its next-door residential district (which formed the native core of the city behind it was incorporated) are in a shallow valley.