It was created as a new town after World War II in 1948, to accommodate the London population overspill[4] from the conglomeration of four small villages, namely Pitsea, Laindon, Basildon (the most central of the four) and Vange.

The local government district of Basildon, which was formed in 1974 and received borough status in 2010, encapsulates a larger area than the town itself; the two neighbouring towns of Billericay and Wickford, as well as rural villages and smaller settlements set among the surrounding countryside, fall within its borders.

[9] By the beginning of the 1900s, Basildon had evolved with much of the land having been sold in small plots during a period of land speculation and development taking placed haphazardly with building by plot owners ranging from shelters created from recycled materials to brick-built homes and with amenities such as water, gas, electricity and hard-surfaced roads lacking.

Basildon Development Corporation was formed in February 1949 to transform the designated area into a modern new town.

[14] The Basildon Centre, which incorporates the local council offices, was officially opened by Jack Cunningham on 14 November 1989.

Basildon has industrial areas situated in Laindon, Cranes Farm Road and Burnt Mills.

[34] A datacentre hosting the European matching engine of the Intercontinental Exchange is located in Gardiners Lane, Basildon on the site of the former York International factory.

Most bus services are provided by First Essex which connect Basildon to Billericay, Wickford and other nearby towns.

As part of Basildon's redevelopment Essex County Council had proposed that the A127 undergo significant development at a cost of £15 million, which was expected to be finished by March 2011.

[40] Essex County Council's Adult Community Learning service, ACL is based at Ely House, Churchill Avenue, while there are several private providers delivering apprenticeship, traineeship and business training.

Basildon is home to the South Essex Gymnastics Club, where Olympic champion Max Whitlock trains.

The Village consists of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, 8 court sports hall, a climbing wall, athletics track and is home to the South Essex Gymnastics Club.

[52] The Festival Leisure Park, includes 15 restaurants, a bowling and arcade centre, a family and entertainment centre with play frame and dodgem car track, two hotels, a bar, a sixteen screen Cineworld cinema, two health clubs and a nightclub called Unit 7.

[63][64] Prior to this, a cinema in Pitsea, originally called The Broadway from 1930, before changing its name in 1955 as The Century, operated until its closure in 1966 when it was converted to a Bingo hall.

[72] Currently there is not a museum dedicated to the history of Basildon, though plans had previously been made to site one at Wat Tyler Park.

Kent View Recreation ground in Vange[76] and Northlands Park in Pitsea are the other large green spaces.

In the late 1980s, due to redevelopment, the whole structure was dismantled and re-built at the Wat Tyler Country Park.

[94] On the west side of town, the Dunton Plotlands area was occupied by small rural dwellings in the mid twentieth century.

[101] The fictional character Nellie Bertram, played by Catherine Tate in the U.S. comedy television series The Office was said to have been born in Basildon.

Basildon had a great influence on the 1980s music scene with bands Depeche Mode and Yazoo, and later by Alison Moyet in her solo career and Vince Clarke in his role with Erasure.

"Comprising of a largely white working class community, the town is one of the most statistically average places in England", he said.

[105] Caron Freeborn, (previously Severn), (1966–2019) author, poet and performer, grew up in Basildon[106] and attended Fryerns Comprehensive.

Later she attended Lucy Cavendish college at Cambridge as a mature student, then as a teacher/lecturer in creative writing including poetry.

She published three novels: Three Blind Mice (2001), described by Marian Keyes as "a dark and compelling love story of a genre that could be called East End noir"; Prohibitions (2004), a literary thriller again set in the East End; and Presenting … the Fabulous O'Learys (2017), a take on King Lear, updated to the 1980s.

Much of Georges Perec is my hero celebrates the real, the brutal (including embracing the brutalist architecture of Basildon), with many poems and photographs based on the town.

Dating from 1962, it was designed by Sir Basil Spence and Anthony B. Davies, with Ove Arup and Partners as the structural engineers.

The building was chosen to have a residential function, as opposed to commercial office space, to retain life in the town centre after the shops had closed.

It was conceived as a structure to define Basildon's urban status and to act as marker to identify the town centre's location within a largely low-rise settlement set in a flat landscape.

Formerly on the wall of Freedom House is the oldest piece of public sculpture in the new town: installed in 1957, it is a wire and aluminium relief by the sculptor A. J. Poole titled Man Aspires.

Within the pool is a bronze sculpture and fountain, titled "Mother and Child", by the sculptor Maurice Lambert and dating from 1959[112] which was listed as Grade II in 1998.