Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 72,958 at the 2000 census. The current mayor is James Doyle.

Pawtucket is home to the Pawtucket Red Sox, a minor-league baseball team; the longest professional baseball game in history was played at McCoy Stadium. Pawtucket has a long history of professional baseball.

Hasbro, the world's second-largest manufacturer of toys and games, also calls the city home.

Pawtucket was the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. Slater Mill, built in 1790 by Samuel Slater on the Blackstone River in downtown Pawtucket, was the first commercially successful cotton-spinning mill with a fully mechanized power system in America.

Originally, there were two Pawtuckets. Pawtucket west of the Blackstone River used to be part of nearby North Providence. East of the Blackstone River was originally settled as part of the Massachusetts town of Rehoboth. Once East Pawtucket (another alternate name for the area of Pawtucket east of the Blackstone) was transferred to Rhode Island in the 1860s, both sections (West and East Pawtucket) merged. It was later incorporated as a city.