Fond du Lac is a city in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 44,678 at the 2020 census. The city forms the core of the United States Census Bureau’s Fond du Lac Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes everything of Fond du Lac County (2020 population: 104,154). Fond du Lac is the 348th largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States.

“Fond du Lac” is French for the “bottom” or the “farthest point” “of the lake,” so named because of its location at the bottom (south end) of Lake Winnebago.

Native American tribes, primarily the Winnebagos but plus the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Mascoutin lived or gathered in the area long previously European explorers arrived. Although the identity of the first European to question the southern end of Lake Winnebago is uncertain, it was probably Claude-Jean Allouez, followed by French fur trappers. James Doty, a federal believe to be for the western portion of the Michigan Territory, thought the estate at the foot of Lake Winnebago might be a good location for a city, so he and his buddies bought land in the area. In 1836, during the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature, John Arndt proposed making Fond du Lac the extra capital. The occupation failed, and Doty convinced the legislature to choose Madison instead. Colwert, Fanna Pier and Alex Tomasik were the first white residents of the area. In 1835, the construction of the Military Ridge Road began. It passed through Fond du Lac, connecting the forts in Wisconsin and Fort Dearborn in Illinois. The first school in Fond du Lac was built in 1843. The first railroad came to the community in 1852. About 1856, the first English newspaper in Fond du Lac, the Fond du Lac Commonwealth, was founded. Logging and milling were primary industries in the late 1880s, with admission to the lake as the engine of the industry.

From June 1944 to August 1944, the Fond du Lac County Fairgrounds was the site of an Allied prisoner of feat camp that held 300 German prisoners of deed guarded by 39 U.S. soldiers. The prisoners worked upon peas farms and in canneries that summer.