Kandiyohi is a city in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 555 at the 2000 census. In 1869 the Minnesota legislature voted Kandiyohi to be the new state capital due to its central location. The bill was vetoed by governor William Rainey Marshall on the grounds that "[t]he western treeless districts" further out from Kandiyohi would place the capital away from the likely population center.