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The city was named for a nearby landform, Big Butte, by the early miners. Butte's urban landscape is notable for including mining operations set within residential areas, visible in the form of various headframes throughout the city.

As a mining boom town, Butte's economy was historically powered by its copious mining operations. Silver and gold were initially the primary metals mined in Butte, but the abundance of copper in the area further invigorated the local economy with the advent of electricity, which created a soaring demand for the metal. Much of the city's economy since 2000 has been focused in energy companies (such as the Renewable Energy Corporation and NorthWestern Energy) and healthcare.

In 1977, Butte consolidated with Silver Bow County, becoming a consolidated city county. It operates under a city county government. The office of the mayor was eliminated. Mario Micone was the last mayor of Butte. In 1977, he became the first Chief Executive of Butte Silver Bow County.

Politically, Butte has historically been a Democratic stronghold, owing to its union legacy. Likewise, Silver Bow County has historically been one of Montana's strongest Democratic bastions. In 1996, Haley Beaudry became the first Republican to represent Butte in the state legislature since 1950. + Presidential elections results Year Republican Democratic Third parties202041.5% 7,74555.7% 10,3922.8% 521201638.8% 6,37652.4% 8,6198.9% 1,457201232.4% 5,43064.8% 10,8572.8% 469200828.3% 4,81868.5% 11,6763.2% 548200439.7% 6,38157.9% 9,3072.5% 396200037.7% 6,29953.7% 8,9678.6% 1,437199622.1% 3,90963.4% 11,19914.5% 2,569199219.2% 3,49154.9% 9,96025.9% 4,695198830.2% 5,04368.5% 11,4221.3% 222198436.9% 6,63761.6% 11,0951.5% 278198037.7% 7,30150.2% 9,72112.2% 2,355

Butte is home to numerous museums and other educational institutions chronicling its history. In 2002, Butte was one of only 12 U. S. towns to be named a Distinctive Destination by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Butte Silver Bow Public Library, at 226 W. Broadway, is dedicated to preserving the town's history. The library was created in 1894 as "an antidote to the miners' proclivity for drinking, whoring, and gambling," designed to promote middle class values and to promote an image of Butte as a cultivated city. Additionally, the Butte Silver Bow Public Archives stores and provides public access to documents and artifacts from Butte's past. Several museums and attractions are dedicated to the city's mining history, including the MBMG Mineral Museum (on the Montana Tech campus), and the World Museum of Mining, at the Orphan Girl mine in uptown Butte, which features "Hell Roarin' Gulch", a mockup of a frontier mining town. The Berkeley Pit, a gigantic former open pit copper mine, is also open to the public for viewing. Another notable site is the Rookwood Speakeasy, a prohibition era speakeasy that features an underground city, and the Mai Wah Museum, dedicated to preserving Asian heritage in the Rocky Mountains. The 34 room Copper King Mansion in uptown Butte was constructed in 1884 by William A. Clark, one of the city's three Copper Kings. The Art Chateau, at one time home to Clark's son, Charles, was designed in the image of a French château, and houses the Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation. Above Butte on the northeast edge of the city is the Our Lady of the Rockies statue, a 90 feet (27 m) statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, dedicated to women and mothers everywhere, atop the Continental Divide. The statue was airlifted to the site on December 17, 1985, after six years of construction. Butte is also home to the U. S. High Altitude Speed Skating Center, an outdoor speed skating rink used as a training location for World Cup skaters. Throughout uptown and western Butte are over ten underground mine headframes that are remnants from the town's mining industry. These include the Anselmo, the Steward, the Original, the Travona, the Belmont, the Kelly, the Mountain Con, the Lexington, the Bell/Diamond, the Granite Mountain, and the Badger. As part of a community project started around 2004, several headframes were repainted and outlined with LED lights which are illuminated at night.

[[File:St Patrick's Day celebration, Butte Montana (2007). jpg|thumb|St. Patrick's Day festival in Butte; the city is home to the largest number of Irish Americans per capita of any city in the United States. has been celebrated annually on St. Patrick's Day since 1882. Each year, about 30,000 revelers converge on Butte's Uptown district to enjoy the parade led by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. A larger annual celebration is Evel Knievel Days, held on the last weekend of July, celebrating Evel Knievel (a Butte native). The weekend long event, held in Uptown Butte, features various stunt performances, sporting competitions, fundraisers, and live music. held on the second weekend in July. This event began its run in Butte as the National Folk Festival from 2008 to 2010 and in 2011 made the transition to a free of admission music festival. Also in the summer is Butte's Fourth of July Parade and Fireworks show. In 2008, Barack Obama spent the last Fourth of July before his presidency campaigning in Butte, taking in the parade with his family, and celebrating his daughter Malia Obama's 10th birthday. Butte's legacy of immigrants lives on in the form of various local cuisine, including the Cornish pasty, popularized by mine workers who needed something easy to eat in the mines, the povitica—a Slavic nut bread pastry which is a holiday favorite sold in many supermarkets and bakeries in Butte—and the boneless porkchop sandwich. The Pekin Noodle Parlor in Uptown is the oldest family owned, continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the U. S.

thumb|left|Because its water contains high concentrations of metals such as copper and zinc, the Berkeley Pit is listed as a federal Superfund site. After the Berkeley Pit mining operation closed in 1982, pipes that pumped groundwater out of the pit were turned off, resulting in the pit slowly filling with groundwater, creating an artificial lake. Only two years later the pit was classified as a Superfund site and an environmental hazard site. The water in the pit is contaminated with various hard metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, and zinc. The Berkeley Pit is both a Superfund site and tourist attraction, viewable from an observation deck. This area takes in the cities of Butte, Anaconda, and Missoula. Butte's mining and smelting activity resulted in significant contamination of the Butte Hill as well as downstream and downwind areas. The contaminated land extends along a corridor of 120 mile (193 km) that reaches to Milltown and takes in adjacent areas such as the Anaconda smelter site. Contaminated sediment flooded out from abandoned mines was the root cause of the pollution at the headwaters of the Clark Fork River. Between the upstream city of Butte and the downstream city of Missoula lies the Deer Lodge Valley. By the 1970s, local citizens and agency personnel were increasingly concerned over the toxic effects of arsenic and heavy metals on environment and human health. The Anaconda Copper Mining Corporation (ACM), which merged with the Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO) in 1977, is considered one of the parties responsible for the contamination. Shortly thereafter, in 1983, ARCO ceased mining and smelting operations in the Butte Anaconda area. For more than a century, the Anaconda Copper Mining company mined ore from Butte and smelted it in Butte (until 1920) and Anaconda. During this time, the Anaconda smelter released up to per day of arsenic, per day of sulfur, and great quantities of lead and other heavy metals into the air. In Butte, mine tailings were dumped directly into Silver Bow Creek, creating a 150 mile (241 km) plume of pollution extending down the valley to Milltown Dam on the Clark Fork River, just upstream of Missoula. Air and waterborne pollution poisoned livestock and agricultural soils throughout the Deer Lodge Valley. Modern environmental cleanup efforts have continued into the 21st century.

Playing for the Pioneer Baseball League, the Butte Copper Kings were first active from 1979 to 1985, then 1987–2000; as of 2018, the team is known as the Grand Junction Rockies. In 2017, the 3 Legends Stadium ballpark opened. Hockey teams from Butte have included the Butte Irish (America West Hockey League) active from 1996 to 2002, after which they became the Wichita Falls Wildcats; and the Butte Roughriders (Northern Pacific Hockey League), active from 2003 to 2011. The Butte Cobras, a Western States Hockey League team, was active from 2014 to 2017. The Cobras then bought the Glacier Nationals franchise in the North American 3 Hockey League (NA3HL) for the 2017–18 season, but the team went dormant prior to playing the season. They eventually began playing in the NA3HL for the 2018–19 season. The Butte Daredevils (Continental Basketball Association), active from 2006 to 2008, were named for Butte native Evel Knievel. University teams include the Montana Tech Orediggers, who have competed in the Frontier Conference of the NAIA since the league's founding in 1952. The school hosts men's and women's basketball, football, golf, and women's volleyball. In October 2020, Butte was awarded a team in the Expedition League to begin play in May 2021.

The city is served by the Butte Bus system, which operates within Butte as well as to the Montana Tech campus and nearby Walkerville. Intercity bus service is provided by Jefferson Lines and Salt Lake Express. Bert Mooney Airport has commercial flights on Delta Connection Airlines and Horizon Air. Butte can be accessed via Interstate 15 from north–south, and Interstate 90 from east–west; the two intersect in Butte, making Butte and Billings the only cities in Montana situated at a juncture of two interstate highways. The city can also be accessed from the south via Montana Highway 2 (Old U. S. Route 10). The Union Pacific Railroad until 1971 ran the Butte Special from Butte, south to Idaho Falls, then to Salt Lake City. Until 1979 Butte was served by Amtrak's Chicago – Seattle North Coast Hiawatha train.

thumb|right|Entrance of Montana Tech. A statue of Marcus Daly by Augustus Saint Gaudens sits at the entrance. Public education is provided by Butte Public Schools. Butte High School enrolls around 1,300 students. In correspondence with the Butte Public Schools system, the Butte Education Foundation was established in 2006, which aims to revitalize the public schools in an effort to attract new businesses and residents. In the foundation's mission statement, it is noted that there is a "need to demonstrate a genuine and ongoing commitment to public education. Schools are often the first thing visitors ask about when looking at Butte as a potential new home." which also operates Butte Central Elementary, a Catholic elementary school. Other private elementary schools include the Silver Bow Montessori School. The first institute of higher education in Butte was the Montana School of Mines, which was established in 1889, the year of Montana's statehood. The university changed its name to Montana Tech in the mid 20th century, and in 1994 became affiliated with the University of Montana. The university specializes in engineering as well as geologic and hydrogeologic research. Montana Technological University is also home to Highlands College, a two year college that grants associate's and trade degrees.

Major AM stations in Butte are KBOW AM 550 (country) and KXTL 1370 (oldies and talk radio). FM stations include KAPC 91.3 Montana Public Radio (via the University of Montana); KAAR 92.5 (country); KOPR 94.1 (classic rock), KMBR 95.5 (mainstream rock), KQRV 96.9 (country), KGLM 97.7 (contemporary), KMSM FM 103.9 (variety), and KBMF 102.5 community radio (classical; via Montana State University).

Butte has one local daily, a weekly paper, as well as several papers from around the state. The Montana Standard is Butte's daily paper. It was founded in 1928 and is the result of The Butte Miner and the Anaconda Standard merging into one daily paper. The Standard is owned by Lee Enterprises. The Butte Weekly is another local paper.

Butte has appeared in numerous films. The first film to notably feature Butte was Evel Knievel (1971), a biopic of Evel Knievel, a Butte native. The 1976 thriller The Killer Inside Me, starring Stacy Keach and Susan Tyrrell and set in small town Montana, was partially shot in Butte in September 1974. The city was featured in Runaway Train (1985), shot in part on the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway, and in the miniseries Return to Lonesome Dove (1993). Other films shot in Butte include F. T. W. (1994). The animated film Beavis and Butt head Do America (1996) depicts Butte. In 2004, the Wim Wenders film Don't Come Knocking was set and shot in Butte. In 2015, the SyFy produced horror film Dead 7, which starred Nick Carter and AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys, as well as Joey Fatone of NSYNC, was shot at the city's Anselmo Mine yards. The 2019 film Juanita is set in Butte. The city has been subject of several documentary films, including Die Vergessene Stadt: Butte, Montana (1992), a German documentary by Thomas Schadt, and Butte, America (2008), narrated by Gabriel Byrne.

One of the earliest literary depictions of Butte was by Mary MacLane, a diarist who wrote of her life growing up in the town at the turn of the 20th century. Her diaries are published under the title I Await the Devil's Coming, and have been credited as a progenitor of confessional writing. Butte answers to the unflattering description of the fictional city of Poisonville in Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest, which also alludes to the 1920 Anaconda Road Massacre. The 1980 novel The Butte Polka by Donald McCaig also incorporates the city's mining history into its plot, featuring a character who goes missing from his post at a Butte copper mine. More contemporary literary depictions of Butte can be found in 1998's Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas and Jon A. Jackson's historical fiction novel Go By Go, which depicts the 1917 Speculator Mine disaster. Ivan Doig's 2010 novel Work Song and 2013 novel Sweet Thunder are set in Butte in 1919 and 1920 respectively, after World War I. Michael Corrigan's Confessions of a Shanty Irishman has a chapter story set in Butte during the Speculator mining disaster and riots. Novelist Marian Jensen has published a mystery series, Mining City Mysteries, which is set in Butte and the surrounding region.

Mercier, Laurie. 2001. Anaconda: Labor, Community, and Culture in Montana's Smelter City (University of Illinois Press). Toole, K. Ross. 1954. "A History of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company: A Study in the Relationships between a State and its People and a Corporation, 1880–1950." PhD Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles.

Copper Camp: Stories of the world's greatest mining town, Butte, Montana compiled by Workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Montana.