City (pop., 2000: 117,083), southwestern Connecticut, U.S. Stamford lies at the mouth of the Rippowam River on Long Island Sound .
Founded in 1641, it was a farming community until the railroad reached it in the 1840s. It was essentially a residential suburb of New York City until the early 1970s, when several major corporations moved their headquarters there, revitalizing the city's economic life. Its decaying downtown was razed and rebuilt with modern skyscrapers; today Stamford has one of the largest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the U.S.