Pigtown is a neighborhood in the southwest area of Baltimore, bordered by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the east, Monroe Street to the west, Russell Street to the south, and West Pratt Street to the north. The neighborhood acquired its name during the second half of the 19th century, when the area was the site of butcher shops and meat packing plants to process pigs transported from the Midwest on the B&O Railroad; they were herded across Ostend and Cross Streets to be slaughtered and processed.

Pigtown's annual festival famously features a pig race, "The Squeakness", to commemorate its history.

Pigtown has long been considered one of Baltimore's most promising neighborhoods due to its proximity to the I-95 corridor, the University of Maryland Medical Center, Camden Yards, Ravens Stadium, the Inner Harbor, and Downtown Baltimore. New developments on the eastern edge of the neighborhood of luxury townhomes were stalled after the 2008 market crash but eventually resumed and have continued into 2016. Other parts of the neighborhood contain classic Baltimore-style rowhouses, often with 1950s-era formstone facades on brick fronts.

Pigtown has a relatively diverse population, which, besides its longtime residents, includes a sizeable graduate student population. Because of its proximity to Interstate 95, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, MARC's Camden Station, and its low housing costs, Pigtown also has a great number of commuters to Washington, D.C., and Fort George G. Meade. The legendary baseball player Babe Ruth was born and raised in Pigtown.

The area where Pigtown is now located was originally part of the Mount Clare plantation, a 2,368-acre estate owned by Dr. Charles Carroll in the 18th century. Carroll built one of Maryland's first iron foundries on the property, which operated the largest pig iron furnace in the colonies prior to the American Revolution. Dr. Carroll was a cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who signed the Declaration of Independence.

In 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was founded in Baltimore. Ground was broken on the Mount Clare property in 1828, with the first stone laid by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, at the age of 90. Initially providing service between Baltimore and Ellicott Mills (now Ellicott City, Maryland), the railroad began operating along West Pratt Street on May 22, 1830. The horsedrawn cars of the early B&O Railroad were the nation's first regular passenger rail.

Construction of the first houses to the north and south of the railroad yards began in 1833. A community of railroad workers grew along Columbia Avenue (now Washington Boulevard) in the 1840s, followed by industrial development in the 1850s and 1860s. Slaughter houses located near the railroad yards earned the area its name as Pigtown as workers herded pigs for slaughter and processing to shops and packing plants across the streets from the rail cars.

Although official records have identified the neighborhood by its more recent "gentrified" name as Washington Village at various points since the 1970s, it has been consistently labeled as Pigtown since 2006 at the insistence of community groups such as Southwest Community Council, Inc.