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Peoria is an incorporated city in the Salt River Valley northwest of Phoenix, lying mostly in Maricopa County with its northern portion extending into Yavapai County.

Peoria was named for Peoria, Illinois, the hometown of many of its first settlers, and the name derives from a Miami-Illinois word meaning "prairie fire."

The community's first residents, Albert J. and Elizabeth Straw, arrived in November 1886, and William John Murphy, who had worked on the Arizona Canal, recruited many of the early farming families from Illinois.

Peoria's post office was granted on August 4, 1888, when the settlement had just 27 residents, and its town plot was filed with the Maricopa County recorder on May 24, 1897.

Peoria incorporated on June 7, 1954, when it had a population of 1,925 on 720 acres.

Peoria High School was approved in 1919, and in 1956 the city was named the "Rose Capitol of the World."

Peoria's growth was driven by the proximity of Luke Air Force Base to the southwest and by the spread of air conditioning across the Phoenix area.

The 2020 census counted 190,985 residents in Peoria, up from 154,065 in 2010, making it the ninth-largest city in Arizona by population.

At the 2000 census, Peoria had 39,184 households.

Peoria covers about 179 square miles, the sixth-largest land area of any city in Arizona, and it annexed Lake Pleasant, a reservoir on the Agua Fria River, in 1996.