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Cranston is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, and with a 2020 census population of 82,934 it is the second-largest city in the state, and the center of population of Rhode Island is located in Cranston.

The Town of Cranston was created in 1754 from a portion of Providence north of the Pawtuxet River, and after losing much of its territory to neighboring towns and the city of Providence, Cranston became a city on March 10, 1910.

Much of the land was purchased by Roger Williams from the Narragansett Indians in 1638 as part of the Pawtuxet Purchase, and the first settler in the area was William Arnold, whose son Stephen Arnold built a gristmill on the Pawtuxet Falls and laid out Arnold Road, modern-day Broad Street.

Historians debate whether the town was named after Governor Samuel Cranston, the longest-serving Rhode Island governor, or his grandson Thomas Cranston, who was serving as speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives when the town was created.

As of the 2020 census, Cranston had a population of 82,934, with 32,676 households and 19,522 families, and the median age was 41.2 years.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 29.9 square miles, of which 1.4 square miles are covered by water, and the city occupies roughly 3 percent of Rhode Island's total land mass.

Many Italian Americans in Cranston are descended from immigrants of Itri, Italy, who settled mainly in the Knightsville section during the early 1900s, and Cranston's St. Mary's Feast, inspired by the Feast of the Madonna della Civita celebrated in Itri, has been a week-long July festival since 1905, while Cranston and Itri became sister cities in 2000.

For many years Cranston was the third-largest city in Rhode Island, but in 2017 it surpassed Warwick to take second place, driven in part by a large and semirural section west of Interstate 295 that has seen a high volume of housing development.

The Pawtuxet River overflowed in March 2010 after an overwhelming amount of rain, shutting down many major sites for repair, including the Warwick Mall.

Narragansett Park, located off Park Avenue, opened at present-day Stadium Ball Field in 1867 as a trotting track and was the first automobile race track in the country.