Peoria grew from 1,925 residents when it incorporated in 1954 to nearly 191,000 by 2020, pushing north into foothills and washes toward Lake Pleasant. New houses on former desert face a very different set of pests than the original town.
The 2020 census put Peoria at 190,985 people, nearly four times its 1990 count of 50,675, spread over about 179 square miles. Most of the city is in Maricopa County, with a northern piece in Yavapai County. It began in the 1880s when settlers, many of them from Peoria, Illinois, came to farm land watered by the Arizona Canal, and Old Town still keeps historic buildings from that era.
The north end is another world. Lake Pleasant, a reservoir on the Agua Fria River behind the New Waddell Dam, became part of Peoria in 1996, and the Hieroglyphic Mountains, West Wing Mountain and Sunrise Mountain rise nearby. Skunk Creek and the usually dry New River and Agua Fria cut through the city. New neighborhoods such as Vistancia sit right beside that terrain, which shapes the Peoria pests we see most.