 The county seat and namesake of the county is the city of Anoka, which is derived from the Dakota word "anokatanhan" meaning "on (or from) both sides," referring to its location on the banks of the Rum River.The largest city in the county is the city of Blaine, the thirteenth-largest city in Minnesota and the eighth-largest Twin Cities suburb.Anoka County comprises the north portion of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, the largest metropolitan area in the state and the sixteenth-largest in the United States with about 3.64 million residents.