Dearborn, city, Wayne county, southeastern Michigan, U.S. Adjacent to Detroit (north and east), it lies on the River Rouge. The birthplace of Henry Ford, it is the headquarters of research, engineering, and manufacturing of the Ford Motor Company. Settled in 1795, it originated as a stagecoach stop (called Ten Eyck and later Bucklin) on the Sauk Trail between Detroit and Chicago. A community known as Pekin developed there and was laid out in 1833 as Dearbornville (named for American Revolutionary War hero Gen. Henry Dearborn), which was incorporated as the village of Dearborn in 1893. Industrial development began with the building of the Ford Motor Company River Rouge Assembly Plant in 1917 and continued with related automotive industries. The city of Fordson, adjacent to the plant, consolidated with Dearborn in 1928.
Henry Ford Community College (1938) and the Dearborn campus (on the site of Fair Lane, the former Ford estate) of the University of Michigan (1959) are located in Dearborn. The city has long had one of the greatest concentrations of people of Arab descent in the United States. Many of them immigrated between the World Wars to work in the Ford factories; the Museum of Arab Culture highlights this immigrant community and the culture in general. The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village feature exhibits of Americana. Spirit of Ford is a children’s science and technology museum focusing on the auto industry. The Dearborn Historical Museum is housed in the former quarters of the commandant of the Detroit Arsenal (built 1833–37). Inc. city, 1927. Pop. (2000) 97,775; Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn Metro Division, 2,061,162; (2010) 98,153; Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn Metro Division, 1,820,584.