Pennsylvania - The Commonwealth of 13 Million Across 67 Counties
Pennsylvania is one of four U.S. states officially designated a Commonwealth rather than a state in its founding documents, a designation it shares with Massachusetts, Virginia, and Kentucky. The Commonwealth holds roughly 13 million residents, which makes it the fifth most populous state in the country, spread across 67 counties and 46,055 square miles. Philadelphia anchors the southeast corner and Pittsburgh the southwest, with a large rural interior running through the Alleghenies between them. Harrisburg, the capital, sits along the Susquehanna River roughly midway between the two cities.
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth at about 1.6 million residents, founded by William Penn in 1682 as the capital of his proprietary colony. Independence Hall in the city centre is where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776 and where the United States Constitution was drafted and signed in 1787. The modern economy of Greater Philadelphia is built on healthcare, higher education, and pharmaceuticals; the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel anchor the academic sector, and the city hosts GlaxoSmithKline's U.S. operations, Comcast's headquarters, and a major cluster of hospitals.
Pittsburgh, the second city at about 303,000 residents, grew on steel production and bituminous coal from the Allegheny and Monongahela valleys. The collapse of integrated steelmaking in the 1980s was severe, but the city has since rebuilt around healthcare and technology. UPMC is the largest employer in western Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University drives one of the country's strongest clusters in robotics and machine learning, and Duolingo grew out of CMU research into one of the most visible education technology firms. Harrisburg, State College, Erie, Allentown, and Scranton round out the significant urban centres, each with distinct economic profiles.
Rural Pennsylvania still produces. Lancaster County, home to the largest Amish community in the world, has the most productive non-irrigated farmland in the United States. Hershey, east of Harrisburg, is the headquarters of the chocolate company that built the town around its factory starting in 1903. The anthracite coal fields of the northeast and the bituminous fields of the southwest sustained the industrial era, and the Marcellus Shale beneath much of the state has made Pennsylvania the second largest natural gas producer in the country after Texas.
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Pennsylvania is one of four U.S. states officially designated a Commonwealth rather than a state in its founding documents, a designation it shares with Massachusetts, Virginia, and Kentucky. The Commonwealth holds roughly 13 million residents, which makes it the fifth most populous state in the country, spread across 67 counties and 46,055 square miles. Philadelphia anchors the southeast corner and Pittsburgh the southwest, with a large rural interior running through the Alleghenies between them. Harrisburg, the capital, sits along the Susquehanna River roughly midway between the two cities.
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth at about 1.6 million residents, founded by William Penn in 1682 as the capital of his proprietary colony. Independence Hall in the city centre is where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776 and where the United States Constitution was drafted and signed in 1787. The modern economy of Greater Philadelphia is built on healthcare, higher education, and pharmaceuticals; the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel anchor the academic sector, and the city hosts GlaxoSmithKline's U.S. operations, Comcast's headquarters, and a major cluster of hospitals.
Pittsburgh, the second city at about 303,000 residents, grew on steel production and bituminous coal from the Allegheny and Monongahela valleys. The collapse of integrated steelmaking in the 1980s was severe, but the city has since rebuilt around healthcare and technology. UPMC is the largest employer in western Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University drives one of the country's strongest clusters in robotics and machine learning, and Duolingo grew out of CMU research into one of the most visible education technology firms. Harrisburg, State College, Erie, Allentown, and Scranton round out the significant urban centres, each with distinct economic profiles.
Rural Pennsylvania still produces. Lancaster County, home to the largest Amish community in the world, has the most productive non-irrigated farmland in the United States. Hershey, east of Harrisburg, is the headquarters of the chocolate company that built the town around its factory starting in 1903. The anthracite coal fields of the northeast and the bituminous fields of the southwest sustained the industrial era, and the Marcellus Shale beneath much of the state has made Pennsylvania the second largest natural gas producer in the country after Texas.
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