Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. Established in 1889, it is one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs and part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. The population was 50,942 at the 2020 census, making it the third largest city in Cuyahoga County, behind Cleveland and Parma.

The area now called Lakewood was populated by the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Chippewa, Wyandot, Munsee, Delaware and Shawnee tribes until the Treaty of Ft. Industry pushed them west in 1805. Prior to the treaty, American settlers were prohibited from moving west of the Cuyahoga River. The treaty ceded 500,000 acres of some of the tribes' land to the United States for about $18,000 or 3.5 cents/acre. The Shawnee and Seneca, living with the Wyandot, were to get $1000 "...every year forever hereafter."

In 1806, the area was formally surveyed as Rockport Township, Township 7, Range 14, of the Connecticut Western Reserve. It was purchased from the Connecticut Land Company by a syndicate of six men headed by Judson Canfield on April 4, 1807, for $26,084. In 1818, permanent settlement began with the arrival from Connecticut of James Nicholson. Other early pioneers included Jared Kirtland and Mars Wagar. Settlements were mostly along Detroit Avenue, a toll road operated by the Rockport Plank Company from 1848 to 1901, with large farms and properties extending north to Lake Erie. Making bricks and planting orchards were among the most prolific occupations until methane gas and oil wells were developed in the early 1880s. By 1819, 18 families lived in Rockport Township. Early settlers sustained their lives through farming. The land was ideal for fruit farming and many vineyards began to emerge. Current street names reflect this history such as Orchard Grove and Blossom Park. The most common occupations in Lakewood were farming and the building trades.

A toll road was established from Cleveland to Lakewood by the Rockport Plank Road Company, operating from 1848 to 1901. Lakewood was incorporated as a village in 1889, and named for its lakefront location. In 1893, streetcars came from Cleveland to Lakewood with the construction of the Detroit Avenue line, followed by the Clifton Boulevard line in 1903 and the Madison Avenue line in 1916.

Under the Ohio Common School Act of April 9, 1867, three schools were allotted to East Rockport, called 6, 8, and 10; they were later designated East, Middle, and West. Each school had one teacher. As the community began to grow and more schools were required, the school board adopted the policy of honoring Ohio's presidents by assigning their names to the school buildings. The Rocky River Railroad was organized in 1869 by speculators as an excursion line to bring Clevelanders to the resort area they developed at the mouth of the Rocky River. Financially unsuccessful as a pleasure and amusement venture, the line was sold to the Nickel Plate Railroad in 1881. The railroad line still exists today, running in an east–west direction north of Detroit Avenue.^{[citation needed]}

Notably, Lakewood was home to two pioneering automobile manufacturers: Winton Motor Carriage Company (est. 1897) and Baker Motor Vehicle (1899). By 1906, the latter became the largest electric vehicle maker in the world at the time.

Rockport Square was developed on the eastern end of the city in 2004 and incorporated residential townhouses all along Detroit Avenue.

Lakewood was accepted into the nationally renowned Ohio Main Street Program in 2005. In 2009, the American Institute of Architects and the Cleveland Restoration Society honored the City of Lakewood Department of Planning & Development and LakewoodAlive with an award for Creative & Effective Preservation Advocacy.