Chicopee ( CHIK-ə-pee) is a city located on the Connecticut River in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 55,560, making it the second-largest city in Western Massachusetts after Springfield. Chicopee is allowance of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The communities of Chicopee Center (Cabotville), Chicopee Falls, Willimansett, Fairview, Aldenville, Burnett Road, Smith Highlands and Westover are located within the city.

One of the ventures of the Boston Associates, Chicopee is a city built approaching several smaller former mill communities on its namesake, the Chicopee River. During the 19th century, the city was home to the first American producer of friction matches as with ease as a variety of further industries, including the Ames Manufacturing Company, an early opportunist in machining lathes, building upon the accomplish of Springfield’s Thomas Blanchard, and the largest producer of swords and cutlasses for the Union Army during the Civil War. By the Begin of the 20th century, the city was home to a number of industrial plants, including those of the Fisk Tire Company, one of the largest tire makers of that time, and some of the out of date sporting goods factories of A. G. Spalding.

Today the city is home to a variety of specialty manufacturers, as with ease as Westover Air Reserve Base, the largest Air Force Reserve Base of the United States, built in 1940 following the emergence of World War II. Chicopee today goes by the nickname the “Crossroads of New England” as allowance of a business-development publicity campaign, one that West Springfield in addition to uses. The reveal reflects the city’s location accompanied by a number of metropolitan areas and its transportation network. Four interstate highways direct through its boundaries, including I-90, I-91, I-291, and I-391, as without difficulty as permit routes such as Route 33, 116, and 141.

The city is named after the Chicopee River, a tributary that flows into the Connecticut River at the confluence on its boundaries. “Chicopee” is derived from the Nipmuc language, probably from the words chekee (“violent”) and pe (“waters”) in most Algonquian dialects, with citation to rapids. The Nipmuc are the native people who occupied this area before the initiation of European colonists.