Littleton is a home rule municipality city located in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, Colorado, United States.

Richard Sullivan Little was an engineer from New Hampshire who came West to work on irrigation systems.

Little soon decided to settle in the area at present day Littleton and brought his wife Angeline from the East in 1862.

The Littles and neighbors built the Rough and Ready Flour Mill in 1867, which provided a solid economic base in the community.

[12] Littleton grew significantly throughout the 1950s and 1960s due to its proximity to Denver and to the Martin Marietta facilities, which produced the Titan rocket and other aerospace products.

[13] News media wrongly reported that the incident happened in the city, because the school's ZIP code is primarily associated with Littleton.

Postal Service;[14] by default, locations in ZIP code 80123 use "Littleton" in their mailing addresses.

[18][19] Littleton lies on the South Platte River in the Colorado Piedmont region of the Great Plains a few miles east of the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains.

In addition, several small lakes and reservoirs are located along the river in the southwestern part of the city.

Wolhurst Lake and McLellen Reservoir are east of the river, fed and drained by Dad Clark Gulch.

[22] As a suburb of Denver, Littleton is part of the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.

The three industries employing the largest percentages of the working civilian labor force were: educational services, health care, and social assistance (20.1%); professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (14.1%); retail trade (11.2%).

[27] The city's housing stock is primarily made up of either detached single-family or apartment buildings.

[29] In 2025, there was a proposal to permit so-called "missing middle" housing (duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes) in neighborhoods that were exclusively zoned for single-family homes, but six council members voted against it while Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Barr cast the lone vote in favor of the proposal.

*Joel Zink was appointed to fill the vacancy created when Council Member Gretchen Rydin stepped down following her election to the Colorado State Legislature.

Western Welcome Week includes over 40 events benefiting dozens of local civic and charitable organizations.