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Pennsylvania (/ˌpɛnsɪlˈveɪniə/ ^ⓘ PEN-sil-VAY-nee-ə; Pennsylvania German: Pennsilfaani), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. Pennsylvania borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east.

Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the United States, with over 13 million residents as of the 2020 United States census. The state is the 33rd-largest by area and has the ninth-highest population density among all states. The largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is the southeastern Delaware Valley, which includes and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth-most populous city. The second-largest metropolitan area, Greater Pittsburgh, is centered in and around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest city. The state's subsequent five most populous cities are Allentown, Reading, Erie, Scranton, and Bethlehem. The state capital is Harrisburg.

Pennsylvania's geography is highly diverse. The Appalachian Mountains run through the center of the state; the Allegheny and Pocono mountains span much of Northeastern Pennsylvania; close to 60% of the state is forested. While it has only 140 miles (225 km) of waterfront along Lake Erie and the Delaware River, Pennsylvania has the most navigable rivers of any state in the nation, including the Allegheny, Delaware, Genesee, Ohio, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and others. (Full article...)

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Photograph by Mathew Brady, 1861

George Brinton McClellan (December 3, 1826 – October 29, 1885) was an American military officer, politician, engineer, businessman and writer who served as the 24th governor of New Jersey. A West Point graduate, McClellan served with distinction during the Mexican–American War before leaving the United States Army to serve as a railway executive and engineer until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Early in the conflict, McClellan was appointed to the rank of major general and played an important role in raising the Army of the Potomac, which served in the Eastern Theater; he also served as Commanding General of the United States Army from November 1861 to March 1862.

McClellan organized and led the Union Army in the Peninsula campaign in southeastern Virginia from March through July 1862. It was the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. Making an amphibious clockwise turning movement around the Confederate Army in northern Virginia, McClellan's forces turned west to move up the Virginia Peninsula, between the James River and York River, landing from Chesapeake Bay, with the Confederate capital, Richmond, as their objective. Initially, McClellan was somewhat successful against General Joseph E. Johnston, but the emergence of General Robert E. Lee to command the Army of Northern Virginia turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles into a Union defeat. However, historians note that Lee's victory was in many ways pyrrhic as he failed to destroy the Army of the Potomac and suffered a bloody repulse at Malvern Hill. (Full article...)

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George B. McClellan Forksville Covered Bridge Pennsylvania State Capitol E. Urner Goodman Gettysburg Address Presque Isle State Park Edward Drinker Cope Liberty Bell Idlewild and Soak Zone Colton Point State Park Hillsgrove Covered Bridge Union Station (Erie, Pennsylvania) Ricketts Glen State Park Daniel Boone Stan Musial DJ AM Herman Vandenburg Ames H.D. Winfield Scott Hancock Taylor Swift Sonestown Covered Bridge Oliver Bosbyshell PNC Park Thaddeus Stevens 2010 United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania Bart King The Philadelphia Inquirer Franklin Peale Joseph Priestley Johnstown Inclined Plane Hobey Baker James G. Blaine Joseph Priestley House Clemuel Ricketts Mansion Tropical Storm Henri (2003) Rachel Carson Michael Francis Egan Samuel J. Randall Ezra Pound Groundhog Day (film)

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Plunketts Creek looking upstream, just north of the mouth in Plunketts Creek Township

Plunketts Creek is an approximately 6.2-mile-long (10 km) tributary of Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Two unincorporated villages and a hamlet are on the creek, and its watershed drains 23.6 square miles (61 km²) in parts of five townships. The creek is a part of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin via Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch Susquehanna and Susquehanna Rivers.

Plunketts Creek's name comes from the first owner of the land including the creek's mouth, and the creek has given its name to two townships (although one has since changed its name). The creek flows southwest and then south through the dissected Allegheny Plateau, through rock from the Mississippian sub-period and Devonian period. Much of the Plunketts Creek valley is composed of various glacial deposits, chiefly alluvium. (Full article...)

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Johnstown, Pennsylvania Scranton, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Philadelphia Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Allentown, Pennsylvania Lancaster, Pennsylvania State College, Pennsylvania Warren, Pennsylvania DuBois, Pennsylvania Erie, Pennsylvania Chambersburg, Pennsylvania Juniata County, Pennsylvania Pithole, Pennsylvania Lock Haven, Pennsylvania Larrys Creek State Route 1002 (Lehigh County, Pennsylvania) Pennsylvania Route 563 Hull Creek (Lackawanna River tributary) Little Fishing Creek Ganoga Lake Mahoning Creek (Susquehanna River tributary) Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania Roaring Brook (Lackawanna River tributary) Pennsylvania Route 463 Kettle Creek (Pennsylvania) Spanish Hill West Branch Fishing Creek West Creek (Pennsylvania) Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 White Deer Hole Creek Horseshoe Curve (Pennsylvania) Kinzua Bridge Quehanna Wild Area Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Levittown, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Turnpike Pocono Mountains Altoona, Pennsylvania

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Credit: Katie Tegtmeyer
JFK Plaza with the LOVE sculpture and fountain.

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... that the Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotive 520 (pictured) had its boiler explode and pulled a "railfan special", before it was preserved in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania?
... that Early Archaic peoples used the Houserville Site in Pennsylvania ten millennia ago?
... that Colleen LaRose, also known as "JihadJane", was living in suburban Pennsylvania when she was arrested for recruiting Islamic terrorists and plotting the murder of Swedish artist Lars Vilks?
... that a class action lawsuit was brought against a Pennsylvania school district for allegedly using webcams in school-issued laptop computers to spy on students at home?
... that John Pittenger, former Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, was the first legislator to regularly employ high school seniors as legislative pages in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives?

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The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km) between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy claims the Appalachian Trail to be the longest hiking-only trail in the world. More than three million people hike segments of the trail each year.

The trail was first proposed in 1921 and completed in 1937. Improvements and changes have continued since then. It became the Appalachian National Scenic Trail under the National Trails System Act of 1968. (Full article...)

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History of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Ministerium Centre Square (building) Perry Como Emily Sartain Randy Pausch Noam Chomsky Battle of Gettysburg Henry Adams Thompson Dodo Marmarosa Jay Cooke & Company E. C. Stoner Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 Heinz Field Duncan & Miller Glass Company Altoona and Beech Creek Railroad Willow Grove Park Mall Commerce Square Elizabethtown station Three Rivers Stadium 2014 Philadelphia Phillies season History of Philadelphia Hershey Creamery Company Reading Railroad Massacre Arlen Specter Pickett's Charge Gaylussacia brachycera Fishing Creek Confederacy Sideling Hill Tunnel Da'Rel Scott Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game Kia Steave-Dickerson Pittsburgh railroad strike of 1877 Gettysburg Cyclorama Forbes Field Battle of Jumonville Glen Arbogast & Bastian George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River Litchfield Towers The Office (American TV series)

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The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia until 1863). It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as part of the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in the colonial United States. The dispute had its origins almost a century earlier in the somewhat confusing proprietary grants by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore (Maryland), and by his son King Charles II to William Penn (Pennsylvania and Delaware).

The largest portion of the Mason–Dixon line, along the southern Pennsylvania border, later became informally known as the boundary between the Southern slave states and Northern free states. This usage came to prominence during the debate around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when drawing boundaries between slave and free territory was an issue, and resurfaced during the American Civil War, with border states also coming into play. The Confederate States of America claimed the Virginia portion of the line as part of its northern border, although it never exercised meaningful control that far north – especially after West Virginia separated from Virginia and joined the Union as a separate state in 1863. It is still used today in the figurative sense of a line that separates the Northeast and South culturally, politically, and socially (see Dixie). (Full article...)

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Pennsylvania State University Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Independence Hall Pittsburgh Steelers Hawk Mountain Amish The Hershey Company First Bank of the United States Ken Griffey Jr. Bob Casey Jr. Guion Bluford Dan Marino William Penn James Buchanan Bill Cosby Arnold Palmer Dizzy Gillespie University of Pennsylvania History of Pennsylvania Cuisine of Philadelphia Pennsylvania Railroad Pennsylvania in the American Civil War Pennsylvania Dutch Fairmount Park Sports in Pittsburgh Braddock Expedition Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania Carlisle Indian Industrial School Gene Kelly Crayola Cathedral of Learning

Pennsylvania news

State facts

State Facts

Nickname: The Keystone State
Capital: Harrisburg
Largest city: Philadelphia
Total area: 119,283 square kilometers (46,055 square miles)
Population (2000 census): 12,281,054
Date admitted to the Union: December 12, 1787 (2^nd)

State symbols

Bird: Ruffed grouse
Fish: Brook trout
Floral emblem: Mistletoe
Flower: Mountain laurel
Insect: Pennsylvania firefly
Mammal: White-tailed deer
Tree: Eastern Hemlock
Fossil: Trilobite
Soil: Hazleton
Song: Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania topics

General images

The following are images from various Pennsylvania-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A map of New Netherland (in magenta) and New Sweden (in blue) in the 17th century; New Sweden was later absorbed by New Netherland and then the British in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 2One of only two confirmed photos of Abraham Lincoln (sitting in center, facing camera, without his traditional top hat) at Gettysburg a few hours prior to giving the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The address, which was only 271 words in length, ranks among the most famed speeches in American history. (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 3The Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1–3, 1863 in Gettysburg, was the Civil War's deadliest battle but also is widely considered the war's turning point in the Union's ultimate victory. The battle is depicted in this 1887 Thure de Thulstrup painting, Battle of Gettysburg. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 4South Philadelphia High School on Broad Street in South Philadelphia in February 2010 (from Pennsylvania)
Image 5The Gettysburg campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg, was a major turning point in the American Civil War and the war's bloodiest battle with an estimated 46,000 to 51,000 casualties (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 6The colonial possessions of Britain (in pink), France (in blue), and Spain (in orange) as of 1750. The French later lost their possessions in North America to Britain following its defeat in the French and Indian War, fought from 1754 to 1763 (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 7Frederick Winslow Taylor of Philadelphia, a late 19th and early 20th century pioneer in scientific management (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 8The Hershey Company in Hershey (from Pennsylvania)
Image 9Autumn in North Branch Township in Wyoming County, October 2011 (from Pennsylvania)
Image 10Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father of the United States and Pennsylvania delegate to the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army in 1775 and unanimously adopted and issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 11Simon Cameron of Maytown was Secretary of War and head of Pennsylvania's Republican Party, whose party machine controlled Pennsylvania into the 20th century. (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 12Rivers Casino, located on the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, one of Pennsylvania's 16 casinos (from Pennsylvania)
Image 13William Penn, a Quaker and son of a prominent admiral, founded the colonial Province of Pennsylvania in 1681. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 14Shelter House in Emmaus, constructed in 1734 by Pennsylvania German settlers, is the oldest continuously occupied building structure in the Lehigh Valley and one of the oldest in Pennsylvania (from Pennsylvania)
Image 15Philadelphia International Airport, the busiest airport in the state and the 21st-busiest airport in the nation with nearly 10 million passengers annually as of 2021 (from Pennsylvania)
Image 16A woodcut illustration of the crowd at the first Republican National Convention in 1856 at Musical Fund Hall at 808 Locust Street in Philadelphia (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 17Stephen Decatur, a 19th-century naval commander who served in the War of 1812 and other engagements (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 18The Birth of Pennsylania, a portrait of William Penn (standing with document in hand), who founded the Province of Pennsylvania in 1681 as a refuge for Quakers after receiving a royal deed to it from King Charles II (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 19Map of Pennsylvania's 67 counties (from Pennsylvania)
Image 20Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, the oldest continuous same-name, same-city franchise in American professional sports (from Pennsylvania)
Image 21The Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg (from Pennsylvania)
Image 22On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln (center, facing camera) arrived in Gettysburg and delivered the Gettysburg Address, considered one of the best-known speeches in American history. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 23Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem was one of the world's leading steel manufacturers for most of the 19th and 20th century. In 1982, however, it discontinued most of its operations, declared bankruptcy in 2001, and was dissolved in 2003. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 24Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom's Steel Force and Thunderhawk roller coasters in Allentown; Steel Force is the eighth-longest steel roller coaster in the world with a first drop of 205 feet (62 m) and a top speed of 75 miles per hour (121 km/h). (from Pennsylvania)
Image 25NASCAR racing at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond (from Pennsylvania)
Image 26The Stonycreek Township crash site of Flight 93, one of four planes hijacked in the September 11 attacks; the site is now a national memorial. Flight 93 passengers wrestled with al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers for control of the plane, preventing it from being flown into the White House or U.S. Capitol. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 27The locomotive Tioga in Philadelphia in 1848; Pennsylvania was an important railroad center throughout the 19th century. (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 282020 U.S. presidential election results by county in Pennsylvania
Democratic
Republican
(from Pennsylvania)
Image 29Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were adopted in 1776 and 1787-88, respectively (from Pennsylvania)
Image 30
Pennsylvania unemployment rate, 1976–2021
US unemployment rate
(from Pennsylvania)
Image 31Lenape chief Lappawinsoe, depicted in a 1735 painting by Gustavus Hesselius (from History of Pennsylvania)
Image 32An Amish family riding in a traditional Amish buggy in Lancaster County; Pennsylvania has the largest Amish population of any state. (from Pennsylvania)
Image 33The Philadelphia Eagles are presented with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after winning Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018 (from Pennsylvania)
Image 34Pittsburgh Steelers' fans waving the Terrible Towel, a tradition that dates back to 1975 (from Pennsylvania)
Image 35Köppen climate types in Pennsylvania (from Pennsylvania)
Image 36Ethnic origins of Pennsylvanians (from Pennsylvania)
Image 37The statue of Benjamin Franklin on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution in Philadelphia ranked one of world's top universities (from Pennsylvania)
Image 38Amtrak's Pennsylvanian on Horseshoe Curve in Logan Township (from Pennsylvania)
Image 39Pat's King of Steaks in South Philadelphia is widely credited with inventing the cheesesteak in 1933 (from Pennsylvania)