Centennial, Colorado

Centennial is a new city, incorporated in 2001 from unincorporated parts of Arapahoe County in order to prevent annexation by Greenwood Village as that town sought to improve its tax base. A number of court cases took place in order to establish the right of incorporation as a superior right to that of annexation before Centennial could properly be formed. At the time of its incorporation, the 100,000+ residents in the incorporated area made Centennial the largest incorporation in American history. One of the promises made by the prospective incorporators was to keep city sales taxes at 1%. Presently, that number is at 2.5%.

Centennial Airport lies just outside the city boundary and actually predates the city by more than 30 years. The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints built their Denver Temple in what is now Centennial. If you were to find a good map of Centennial, you'd see that the city appears on the map as a checkerboard pattern with portions of Foxfield, Aurora and unincorporated areas interspersed.