Tempe ( tem-PEE;) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2020 population of 180,587. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community on the north, Chandler on the south, and Mesa upon the east. Tempe is then the location of the main campus of Arizona State University.

The Hohokam lived in this Place and built canals to sustain their agriculture. They and no-one else their settlements during the 15th century, with a few individuals and families unshakable nearby.

Fort McDowell was established nearly 25 mi (40 km) northeast of present downtown Tempe on the upper Salt River in 1865 allowing for additional towns to be built farther down the Salt River. US military encouragement members and Hispanic workers were hired to be credited with food and animal feed to supply the fort, and less than a year later, had set up little camps near the river that were the first surviving communities in the Valley after the slip of the Hohokam. (Phoenix was settled gruffly afterward, by 1867–68.) The two settlements were ‘Hayden’s Ferry’, named after a ferry bolster operated by Charles T. Hayden, and ‘San Pablo’, and were located west and east of Hayden Butte respectively. The ferry became the key river crossing in the area. The Tempe Irrigating Canal Company was soon customary by William Kirkland and James McKinney to pay for water for alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, and cotton.

Pioneer Darrell Duppa is credited with suggesting Tempe’s name, adopted in 1879, after comparing the Salt River valley close a 300-foot (91 m)-tall butte, to the Vale of Tempe near Mount Olympus in Greece.