Queen Creek is a town in the state of Arizona, United States, mostly in Maricopa County but partly in Pinal County. The population was 59,519 at the 2020 census, and is 83,700 as of 2024.
Queen Creek is a suburb of Phoenix, located in the far southeast area of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area – known locally as the Valley of the Sun – which the United States Office of Management and Budget designates as the Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). As such, it is also part of the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion.
History
Based on the post office form on file at the National Archives, Queen Creek was originally known as Rittenhouse, after C. H. Rittenhouse, the community having grown out of a railroad stop he constructed after forming the Queen Creek Farms Company in 1919 and needed a shipping point for his produce. This became a flag stop used for transportation into Phoenix.
The eponymous creek after which the city is named once flowed through Queen Canyon and was originally called originally called Picket Post Creek, before being named for the Silver Queen Mine. The creek is typically more of a dry arroyo.
The city of Mesa borders Queen Creek to the north, and the city of Apache Junction lies to the northeast. To the east is San Tan Valley, an unincorporated community of Pinal County, while on the southeast is the planning area of the town of Florence. South of Queen Creek is the San Tan Mountain Regional Park, and on the west is the town of Gilbert.
|source 2 = Western Regional Climate Center