Rishon LeZion (Hebrew: רִאשׁוֹן לְצִיּוֹן‎‎  (audio) (help·info), lit. First to Zion), is the fourth-largest city in Israel, located along the central Israeli coastal plain 12 kilometers south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area.

The city had a population of 228,200 at the end of 2009. Founded in 1882 by European Jewish immigrants, it was the second Jewish farm colony established in Land of Israel in the 19th century, after Petah Tikva.

The name Rishon LeZion is derived from a biblical verse: "First to Zion are they, and I shall give herald to Jerusalem" (Hebrew: ראשון לציון הנה הינם, ולירושלים מבשר אתן‎) (Isaiah 41:27) and literally translates as "First to Zion".

Rishon LeZion was founded on July 31, 1882 by ten Hovevei Zion pioneers from Kharkov, Ukraine (then the Russian Empire) headed by Zalman David Levontin. Reuven Yudalevich was also a member of the group. The pioneers purchased 835 acres (337.91 ha) of land southeast of present-day Tel Aviv, part of the townland of the Arab village of Ayun Kara (literally ' fountain of the crier'). Ayun Kara was the scene of a bloody battle between Turkish and New Zealand troops on November 14, 1917. A stone cenotaph was erected by the people of Rishon LeZion to the memory of the New Zealanders who fell that day, but it has since been destroyed.