Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 105,643 as of the 2020 United States Census. Along with Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County. It is the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts and is sometimes referred to as the “City of Champions”, due to the success of native boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, as well as its successful Brockton High School sports programs. Two villages within it are Montello and Campello, both of which have MBTA Commuter Rail Stations and post offices. Campello is the smallest neighborhood, but also the most populous. Brockton hosts a baseball team, the Brockton Rox. It is the second-windiest city in the United States, with an average wind speed of 14.3 mph (23.0 km/h).

In 1649, Ousamequin (Massasoit) sold the surrounding land, then known as Saughtucket, to Myles Standish as an addition to Duxbury. Brockton was part of this area, which the English renamed Bridgewater. On June 15, 1821, a portion of the then Bridgewater Township was established as North Bridgewater. Its name changed in 1874, after a contentious process finally decided on naming it after Isaac Brock (the initial British commanding general at Queenston Heights, where invading American troops suffered a rout, in 1812), after a local merchant heard of Brockville, Ontario, on a trip to Niagara Falls. Brockton became a city on April 9, 1881. During the American Civil War, Brockton was America’s largest producer of shoes, and until the latter parts of the 20th century, Brockton had a large shoe and leather products industry.

Since the company’s 1898 founding, Brockton has been the headquarters city of office supplies retailer W.B. Mason, itself founded to provide those supplies to the city’s shoe industry.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 21.6 square miles (56 km), of which 21.5 square miles (56 km²) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km) (0.56%) is water. Brockton is the 162nd largest city by land area in the Commonwealth, and the twelfth largest of the twenty-seven towns in Plymouth County. Brockton is bordered by Stoughton to the northwest, Avon to the north, Holbrook to the northeast, Abington to the northeast, Whitman and East Bridgewater to the southeast, West Bridgewater to the south, and Easton to the west. Brockton is approximately 25 miles south of Boston, and 30 miles northeast of Providence, Rhode Island.

Brockton is mostly an urban setting, lying along the Salisbury Plain River, which once powered the many shoe factories of the city. To the northeast lies the Beaver Brook Conservation Land, attached to the southern end of the Ames Nowell State Park in Abington. There are several parks throughout the city, but the largest is D.W. Field Park, an Olmsted-inspired park which includes ponds, Waldo Lake and Brockton Reservoir in Avon, as well as a golf course.

As of the census of 2020, there were 105,673 people, 31,440 households, and about 3.04 people living in each household, and about an average family size of 3.59. The population density was 4,486.3 people per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 27.3% White, 50.9% African American, 0.7% Native American, 2.0% Asian, 0% Pacific Islander, and 2.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.9% of the population. The African-American population in Brockton has grown significantly since the beginning of the early 2000s.

Brockton has one of the largest population of Cape Verdean ancestry in the United States, with about 9% of its population. Brockton also reportedly has one of the largest communities of Angolans in the United States.^{[citation needed]}