Rochester Hills is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 76,300. It is the 14th-largest city in Michigan.

The area was first occupied by settlers of European parentage in 1817, and organized as Avon Township in 1835. The City of Rochester incorporated in 1967, while the remaining Place of Avon Township was incorporated and renamed the City of Rochester Hills in 1984. Considered a northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Rochester Hills is practically 12 miles (19.3 km) north of Detroit.

Prior to European settlement, the area now known as Rochester Hills was inhabited by Native Americans, namely the Potawatomi. The Potawatomi depended upon the area’s abundant water sources, such as the Clinton River and Paint Creek, to go to crops, fish, and travel. They resided here until the 1807 Treaty of Detroit caused them, along subsequent to the Odawa, Wyandot, and Ojibwe peoples, to cede their estate in Southeast Michigan.

The first European settler was James Graham who arrived in 1817. Graham and his intimates reached the Place by subsequently trails created by the Sauk Native Americans. Avon Township was organized in 1835. Rochester incorporated as a village within the township in 1869. The township adopted a charter in 1948 under the Home Rule Act. Also in 1948 a say office was established below the declare of Brooklands for the Place between Auburn Road and Hamlin Road just to the west of Dequindre Road.