boomtown

thumb|upright=1.2|World's Richest Acre Park in Downtown Kilgore, where the greatest concentration of oil wells in the world once stood in [[Kilgore, Texas, United States]] A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons, such as a proximity to a major metropolitan area, large infrastructure projects, or an attractive climate.

==First boomtowns== thumb|Trieste, [[Italy, from the opening of the free port, a boomtown of Central Europe in the northernmost part of the Adriatic.]] thumb|California attracted tens of thousands of gold prospectors during the Gold Rush of 1849. Early boomtowns, such as Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, experienced a dramatic surge in population and economic activity during the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century. In pre-industrial England these towns had been relative backwaters, compared to the more important market towns of Bristol, Norwich, and York, but they soon became major urban and industrial centres. Although these boomtowns did not directly owe their sudden growth to the discovery of a local natural resource, the factories were set up there to take advantage of the excellent Midlands infrastructure and the availability of large seams of cheap coal for fuel.