Tempe, United States
Tempe, an East Valley suburb bordering Phoenix's core, is a North American Regional Market with one Regional-tier and two Local-tier co-location clusters. Arizona State University's main campus anchors the local economy and drives a denser, more urbanized character than a typical suburban Regional Market.
Overview
According to Wikipedia (accessed 2026-07-10), Tempe recorded a population of 180,587 at the 2020 census across a land area of 39.94 square miles. It sits approximately 2 miles southeast of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, bordered by Mesa to the east and Phoenix to the west.
Arizona State University is the leading employer with 8,010 employees, followed by State Farm Insurance (6,550) and Freedom Financial Network (2,300). The city also hosts corporate headquarters including DriveTime, GoDaddy, and Carvana. Downtown redevelopment around Tempe Town Lake has reshaped the urban core, and the population has grown increasingly diverse — non-Hispanic white residents comprised 54 percent in 2020, alongside growing Asian (9.5 percent) and Hispanic (22 percent) populations.
Notable commercial development includes the Arizona Mills shopping mall, the Tempe Marketplace open-air retail development, and the first Arizona IKEA location. The Mill Avenue pedestrian shopping district anchors downtown.
Regional Market Standing
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Suburb of | Phoenix |
Tempe has one Regional-tier and two Local-tier co-location clusters. Cluster-level detail — the specific retail and civic anchors composing each cluster — is pending the underlying GIS dataset and is not included in this stub. See Top 400 Regional Markets — North America for the full Top 400 set and Co-location Methodology for how markets qualify.
See Also
- Top 400 Regional Markets — North America
- Regional Markets Intelligence System
- Co-location Methodology
References
- Tempe, Arizona — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-10
Wikipedia content reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0.