Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama, with a 2020 population of 76,143. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a population of 158,991, along with the Columbus, GA-AL MSA and Tuskegee, Alabama, comprises the greater Columbus-Auburn-Opelika, GA-AL CSA, a region home to 501,649 residents.
Auburn is a historic college town and is the home of Auburn University. It is Alabama's fastest-growing metropolitan area and the nineteenth fastest-growing metro area in the United States since 1990. U.S. News ranked Auburn among its top ten list of best places to live in the United States for the year 2009. The city's unofficial nickname is "The Loveliest Village On The Plains," taken from a line in the poem The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith: "Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain..."


Auburn was founded in 1836, when the Alabama legislature chartered a town under the name "Springville". In 1839, it changed to "Lewiston", after Governor John Tyler signed legislation changing the name of Springville to "Lexington" and that of Tuscaloosa County seat from Lexington to Auburn. The first business in Auburn was a small store opened by William E. Lovelace on September 27, 1838.

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