Sun City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, that is located within the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The population was 39,931 as of the 2020 census. Its adjoining sister city is Sun City West. Both Sun Cities are retirement communities popular with snowbirds.
In June 1959, James G. Boswell II, then owner of the J.G. Boswell Company, sold the company’s Marinette and Santa Fe ranches to Del E. Webb Development Co for more than $20 million. This land, totaling 20,000 acres, would become the company’s first retirement community, Sun City.
Sun City was opened January 1, 1960, with five home models, a shopping center, a recreation center, and a golf course. The opening weekend drew 100,000 people, ten times more than expected, and resulted in a Time magazine cover story. The future retirement community was built on the site of the former ghost town of Marinette. At first it was called the Marinette Retirement Community, but after a nationwide naming contest in which the winner would win a house, developer Del Webb selected the name Sun City.
Developer Del E. Webb expanded Sun City over the years, and his company went on to build other retirement communities in the Sun Belt. Sun City West was built in the late 1970s, Sun City Grand in the late 1990s, Sun City Anthem in 1999, and Sun City Festival in July 2006.
The community’s s
