According to the United States Census conducted in 2020, Rochester - the county seat of Monroe County and the fourth-largest city in New York after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers - had a population of 211,328. Rochester, located in Western New York, serves as the hub of a wider metropolitan area that encompasses six counties and is home to one million people. Rochester was one of the United States' earliest boomtowns, thanks to the fertile Genesee River Valley and numerous flour mills, as well as its role as a manufacturing center that fueled even faster population growth.

Many national and local enterprises, including Carestream Health, and several Fortune 1000 companies like Paychex, have their base in Rochester. Although it has shifted its headquarters to Norwalk, Connecticut, Xerox still has a considerable presence in Rochester, where it was first established in 1906 as the Haloid Company[92]. In 2014, Bausch & Lomb moved to Bridgewater, New Jersey. While Frank Gannett and Hiram Sibley started their respective businesses in Rochester, Western Union and the Gannett newspaper firm have relocated since.

Trivia