Surprise, Arizona

Surprise is a city in Maricopa County, within the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona. It covers 69.5 sq mi (180 sq km). Surprise has a population of 93,000 (2011 estimate). It is the second fastest growing city within the Phoenix metropolitan area after Gilbert, and the sixth fastest growing municipality in Arizona.

Surprise City Hall, Surprise, Arizona
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:City_Hall_-_Surprise,_AZ,_USA_2250094.jpg
Author: Venske


Surprise was founded by Flora Mae Statler in 1938. She gave it the name Surprise, because she would be surprised if it ever amounted to much. The town of Surprise was incorporated into a city in 1960. In recent decade it has grown rapidly. Many of the new-comers are retirees living in age-restricted resort communities such as Sun City Grand.

Surprise will be the location of the largest regional shopping center in Arizona. Developed by Prasada, the mall will have a number of anchor tenants including Walmart and Target. The Walmart covers 1.2 million sq ft on a 600,000 sq ft plot, and expected to open in 2012. Target will be another anchor tenant on a 800,000 sq ft store, also opening in 2012. In addition, the mall will have an auto showroom, offices, a hospital and residential area.

Visiting Surprise, Arizona

US Highway 60 and State Route 303 are the main highways serving Surprise.

Clock Tower in Surprise, Arizona
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clock_Tower_-_Surprise,_AZ,_USA_2250113.jpg
Author: Venske

Places of Interest in Surprise, Arizona

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Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.