About Bozeman
If you want to live in scenic Montana, enjoying boundless recreation and spectacular vistas, there's no better place than Bozeman. A small town feeling with big city amenities, Bozeman nestles in the verdant Gallatin River Valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. The county is 2,517 square miles in size, larger than the states of Rhode Island or Delaware.
Pretty, tree-lined Bozeman lies at the east end of the Gallatin Valley, a two hour drive west of Billings and a mere hour and a half north of Yellowstone National Park. Founded by farmers in 1863, it's the only sizeable town in Montana that doesn't owe its roots to mining, railroading or lumbering. Main Street boasts many historic storefronts offering every amenity imaginable, but you're never far from vast acreages of public land surrounding the valley.
The city itself lies at an elevation of 4,795 feet and is surrounded on three sides by the Bridger, Gallatin and Tobacco Root mountains. Home of Montana State University, Bozeman is a diverse, friendly community and a center for state-wide recreation throughout the year. To the east over Bozeman Pass lies Livingston, another gateway to Yellowstone Park and the famous Paradise Valley, home of movie stars and the Yellowstone River, one of the West's last remaining free-flowing rivers that sports some of the biggest trophy brown trout in Montana.
Just to the north, the working community of Belgrade rises out of the surrounding farm land of the Gallatin Valley, and farther west, lies Manhatten and Three Forks, the confluence of the three forks of the Missouri River. Just to the south, the Gallatin River and Highway 191 spills through the famous Gallatin Gateway, one of the most scenic valleys anywhere in the West, providing access to West Yellowstone, Big Sky ski area and the western edge of Yellowstone Park.
With ski resorts, countless acres of nearby national parks, forest service and other public land, Bozeman and the surrounding Gallatin Valley are one of the most desirable "Last Best Places" in America to live and own property.