Prichard borders the north side of Mobile, as well as the Mobile suburbs of Chickasaw, Saraland, and the unincorporated sections of Eight Mile. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the city was 22,659. It is a part of the Mobile metropolitan statistical area.

Prichard began as a settlement in the 1830s, bordering Telegraph Road (known now as U.S. Highway 43) It remained largely unsettled until the Clotilde landed in Mobile Bay prior to the Civil War. Africatown evolved into a greater part of the Plateau/Magazine area which developed along Telegraph Road, and eventually, Plateau and Magazine had their territory split between Mobile and Prichard.

After 1900, Prichard began a slow, steady development. In 1925, Prichard was incorporated as a city. During World War II, Prichard became a company town as many Mobile shipbuilding companies built homes for their workers in Prichard. During the 1950s and 1960s, Prichard annexed historic Whistler as well as parts of Eight Mile and Kushla. The 1940s and 1950s saw phenomenal growth in the Mobile area, and Mobile, Prichard and Chickasaw all recorded their highest city-proper populations in 1960. Following the Civil Rights Movement however, Prichard's rigid system of segregation collapsed, and many blacks who had previously lived in the Bullshead/Neely/Trinity Gardens area of Prichard began moving into East Prichard (downtown Prichard), causing a dramatic white flight to occur.

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