Tempe, city, Maricopa county, south-central Arizona, U.S. It lies along the Salt River and is a southern suburb of Phoenix. First settled (1872) by Charles Hayden, father of former Arizona senator Carl Hayden, it was called Hayden’s Ferry until renamed in 1880 for the Vale of Tempe, Greece. It is the site of Arizona State University (1885), whose campus contains the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. After World War II Tempe experienced marked residential and economic growth with light-industrial development. The city’s economic activities, once centred on agriculture (through the Salt River Irrigation Project), now are based on manufacturing, trade, and high-tech industry; most of the city’s farmland was given over to residential and commercial development in the 1990s. Tempe is the home of the spring training camps of the Arizona Cardinals (professional football) and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (professional baseball). Since 1971 Tempe has been the host of the Fiesta Bowl (college football). Inc. town, 1894; city, 1964. Pop. (2010) 161,719; (2020) 180,587.