Chandler

Sister cities

• Tainan

History

In 1891, Alexander J. Chandler, a Canadian and the first veterinary surgeon in the Arizona Territory, settled on a ranch south of Mesa and studied irrigation engineering. By 1900, he had acquired of land and began drawing up plans for a town-site on what was then known as the Chandler Ranch. The town-site office opened on May 16, 1912. The 1912 town-site was bounded by Galveston Street to the north, Frye Road to the south, Hartford Street to the west, and Hamilton Street to the east. By 1913, the town center featured the Hotel San Marcos, which also had the first grass golf course in the state. Chandler High School was established in 1914. Chandler was incorporated on February 16, 1920 by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, after 186 residents petitioned them Most of Chandler's economy was sustained during the Great Depression (though the Depression was to blame for the cancellation of a second San Marcos hotel), but the cotton crash a few years later had a much deeper impact on the city's residents. A. J. Chandler lost his San Marcos hotel to creditors as a result. Later, the founding of Williams Air Force Base in 1941 led to a small surge in population, but Chandler still only held 3,800 people by 1950. By 1980, the population had grown to 30,000, and it has since paced the Phoenix metropolitan area's high rate of growth, with suburban residential areas and commercial use areas swallowing former agricultural plots. The population has nearly doubled in the last twenty years. Some of this growth was fueled by the establishment of manufacturing plants for communications and computing firms such as Microchip, Motorola and Intel.

Geography

According to the 2020 census, Chandler has a total area of , of which , or 0.11%, are listed as water. The center of the city, along Arizona State Route 87, is southeast of Downtown Phoenix. Chandler is in proximity to/borders the San-Tan mountain range. The San-Tan mountains are in the jurisdiction of the Gila River Indian Community. Chandler is divided into three parts: North Chandler, West Chandler and South Chandler, each being divided by the Loop 202 (Santan Freeway) and Loop 101 (Price Freeway). Chandler has a subtropical hot desert climate (Köppen: BWh) with extremely hot summers and mild winters.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  39,912
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  39,675
• Anna's Hummingbird

  Calypte anna (R.Lesson, 1829) · Aves
  34,536
• Verdin

  Auriparus flaviceps (Sundevall, 1850) · Aves
  33,446
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  33,361
• Gila Woodpecker

  Melanerpes uropygialis (S.F.Baird, 1854) · Aves
  32,296
• Curve-billed Thrasher

  Toxostoma curvirostre (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  31,628
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  30,972

Largest nearby schools

• Primavera - Online
  Other · Chandler · 6,392 students
• Hamilton High School
  High · CHANDLER · 3,850 students · 21.6:1 ratio
• Chandler High School
  High · CHANDLER · 3,597 students · 18.7:1 ratio
• Mesa High School
  High · MESA · 3,475 students · 20.9:1 ratio
• Sequoia Choice School Arizona Distance Learning School
  Other · Mesa · 3,083 students
• Desert Vista High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,964 students · 23.5:1 ratio
• Perry High School
  High · GILBERT · 2,822 students · 20.2:1 ratio
• Basha High School
  High · CHANDLER · 2,814 students · 20.8:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2026-03-15
  9 km SSE of Tat Momoli, Arizona
• M 2.6 — 2022-02-25
  1 km S of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.5 — 2022-02-15
  6 km S of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.5 — 2022-02-12
  2 km ESE of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.6 — 2020-06-06
  5 km NW of New River, Arizona
• M 3.2 — 2016-12-10
  11 km ENE of Rio Verde, Arizona