Barnum built four houses in Bridgeport and housed his circus in town during winter. Barnum was a resident of the city and served as the town's mayor (1871).

Inhabited by the Paugussett Native American tribe until English settlement in the 1600s, Bridgeport was incorporated in 1821 as a town, and as a city in 1836. The Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk–Danbury metropolis forms part of the New York metropolitan area.

Bridgeport and other towns in Fairfield County make up the Greater Bridgeport Planning Region, as well as the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk–Danbury metropolitan statistical area, the second largest metropolitan area in Connecticut. It is bordered by the towns of Trumbull to the north, Fairfield to the west, and Stratford to the east. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Island Sound, it is a port city 60 miles (97 km) from Manhattan and 40 miles (64 km) from The Bronx. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020.

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