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is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 14,904 at the 2000 census. It includes the villages of South Windham and North Windham. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The township was granted in 1734 by the Massachusetts General Court to Abraham Howard, Joseph Blaney and 58 others from Marblehead, Massachusetts. In 1737, New Marblehead Plantation was settled by Captain Thomas Chute. By order of the Massachusetts General Court, a fort was built in spring of 1744 at the center of the settlement to offer protection during King George's War. It was equipped with 2 swivel guns, and within its stockade the town's inhabitants remained between 1745 and 1751. The last Indian attack on the town occurred on May 14, 1756. New Marblehead Plantation was incorporated on June 12, 1762 as Windham, named for Wymondham in Norfolk, England.
Most of the early inhabitants were farmers, who found the soil loamy and easily worked. Windham provided numerous sites for water power, and as early as 1738 a mill was erected at Mallison Falls. The Cumberland and Oxford Canal opened in 1832, carrying goods along the Presumpscot River between Sebago Lake and Portland. In 1859, when Windham's population was 2,380, it had 8 sawmills, a corn and flour mill, 2 shingle mills, a fulling mill, 2 carding mills, a woolen textile factory, a barrel factory, a chair stuff factory, a powder factory and 2 tanneries. By 1886, the town also produced felt, boots and shoes, wood-paper board, carriages, harness, coffins, clothing and wooden ware. On April 4, 1919, the legislature passed an act creating at South Windham the Reformatory for Men. It is now the Maine Correctional Center, a minimum to medium security facility for men and women. With its principal village at North Windham, the town is today a recreational area and Portland suburb.