Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major harbor in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is after that the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River upon Long Island Sound, it is 60 miles (97 km) from Manhattan and 40 miles (64 km) from The Bronx. It is bordered by the towns of Trumbull to the north, Fairfield to the west, and Stratford to the east. Bridgeport and extra towns in Fairfield County make occurring the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolitan statistical area, the second largest metropolitan Place in Connecticut. The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolis forms allocation of the New York metropolitan area.

Inhabited by the Paugussett Native American tribe until English agreement in the 1600s, Bridgeport was incorporated in 1821 as a town, and as a city in 1836. Showman P. T. Barnum was a resident of the city and served as the town’s mayor (1871). Barnum built four houses in Bridgeport and housed his circus in town during winter. The city in the to come 20th century maxim an economic and population boom, becoming by anything measures Connecticut’s chief manufacturing city by 1905. Bridgeport was the site of the world’s first mutual telephone exchange (1877), the first dental hygiene school (1949), and the first bank telephone tally service in the US (1981). Inventor Harvey Hubbell II invented the electric plug outlet in Bridgeport in 1912. The Frisbie Pie Company was founded and operated in Bridgeport.
The world’s first Subway restaurant opened in the city’s North stop in 1965. After World War II, industrial restructuring and suburbanization caused the loss of many large companies and thriving residents, leaving Bridgeport struggling considering issues of poverty and violent crime.

Since the arrival of the 21st century, Bridgeport has begun extensive redevelopment of its downtown and extra neighborhoods. Bridgeport’s crime rate started going beside significantly approaching 2010, and by 2018 had been edited by approaching 50 percent. Bridgeport is house to 3 museums, the University of Bridgeport, Housatonic Community Collage, Paier College, and allocation of Sacred Heart University as well as the state’s deserted zoo. Bridgeport is officially nicknamed “Park City”, due to its public parks, 35 public parks taking taking place 1,300 acres, including two large ones. Although none are headquartered within the city itself, more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies are based in its metropolitan area, which it shares in the same way as Stamford. Bridgeport by various sites has been consistently ranked as in the middle of the 25 most ethnically and culturally diverse American cities.

Bridgeport was inhabited by the Paugussett native American tribe during the Begin of European colonization. The olden European communal settlement was in the historical Stratfield district, along US Route 1; known in colonial get older as the King’s Highway. Close by, Mount Grove Cemetery was laid out on what was a original village that extended past the 1650s. It is furthermore an ancient Paugusett burial ground.