Geography of Pennsylvania

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Map of Pennsylvania's cities and rivers National-atlas-pennsylvania.png
Map of Pennsylvania's cities and rivers

The geography of Pennsylvania varies from sea level marine estuary to mountainous plateau. The state is known for its natural resources, ports, and the leading role it played in the nation's founding and history.

Contents

Major features

The Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley Watercourse.jpg
The Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley

Pennsylvania's nickname, "the Keystone State", derives from the fact that the state forms a geographic bridge both between the Northeastern United States and the Southern United States between the Atlantic seaboard and Midwest. The state's western toehold extends to the Great Lakes at the Erie triangle.

Pennsylvania is bordered on the north and northeast by New York; on the east by New Jersey; on the south by Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia; on the west by Ohio; and on the northwest by Lake Erie. It has a small border on Lake Erie with Canada. The Delaware, Susquehanna, Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers are the state's major rivers. The Lehigh River in the state's east and Oil Creek in its west are smaller waterways that played vital roles in Pennsylvania's early industrial development. Pennsylvania is one of 13 U.S. states that share a border with Canada.

Pennsylvania is 180 miles (290 km) north to south and 310 miles (500 km) east to west. The total land area is 44,817 square miles (116,080 km2)739,200 acres (2,991 km2) of which are bodies of water. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States. The state's highest point is 3,213 feet (979 m) above sea level at Mount Davis. Its lowest point is at sea level on the Delaware River.

Regions

Pennsylvania Dutch region

The Pennsylvania Dutch region in south-central Pennsylvania is a favorite for sightseers. The Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Old Order Amish, the Old Order Mennonites and at least 15 other sects, are common in the rural areas around the cities of Lancaster, York, and Harrisburg with smaller numbers extending northeast to the Lehigh Valley and up the Susquehanna River Valley. Some adherents eschew modern conveniences and use horse-drawn farming equipment and carriages, while others are virtually indistinguishable from non-Amish or Mennonites. Descendants of the plain sect immigrants who do not practice the faith often refer to themselves as Pennsylvania Germans.

Despite the name, the Pennsylvania Dutch are not from the Netherlands, but rather are from various parts of southwest Germany, Alsace, and Switzerland. The word "Dutch" is left over from the original meaning of the English word "Dutch", which once referred to the entire West Germanic dialect continuum. [1]

Western Pennsylvania

The western third of the state is a separate large geophysical unit. Several important, complex factors set Western Pennsylvania apart from the east, including the initial difficulty of access across the mountains, rivers oriented to the Mississippi River drainage system, and complex economics involved in the rise and decline of the American steel industry centered in and around Pittsburgh, the state's second largest city. Other factors, such as a markedly different style of agriculture, the rise of the oil industry, timber exploitation and the old wood chemical industry, and local dialect, all make Western Pennsylvania distinct from other regions of the state.

The mountains

Pennsylvania terrain showing the barrier nature and overall orientation of the curving Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. From the Poconos, the parallel ridges again turn Northerly diagonally across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut, Eastern New York, where the Delaware and Hudson rivers both cut through the ridges, which continue on as the Appalachian Mountains in Northern New England. Pennsylvania Relief 1.jpg
Pennsylvania terrain showing the barrier nature and overall orientation of the curving Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. From the Poconos, the parallel ridges again turn Northerly diagonally across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut, Eastern New York, where the Delaware and Hudson rivers both cut through the ridges, which continue on as the Appalachian Mountains in Northern New England.
Counties of Pennsylvania's Coal Region, known for anthracite mining Map of PA Coal Region.gif
Counties of Pennsylvania's Coal Region, known for anthracite mining
Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields Anthracite coalfields on 1872 PA map.jpg
Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields

Pennsylvania is bisected in an S-curve (or roughly diagonally) by the barrier ridges of the Appalachian Mountains from southwest to northeast, forcing pre-twentieth century ground travel most often on or near the ancient Amerindian trails along the higher terrains of the local watersheds with limited penetration and connectivity often only through water gaps. As rough looking as the first map appears, the valley bottoms throughout the entire central part of the state and parts of lower New York state are connected by the Susquehanna River and its tributariesvirtually the whole length of which was improved into the Pennsylvania Canal System in the 1830s. To the northwest of the folded mountains is the Allegheny Plateau which lies above the cliff-like Allegheny Front escarpment, which continues into southwestern and south central New York, and is pierced in only a few places known as the gaps of the Allegheny.

The Allegheny Plateau is dissected by valleys formed by small streams and springs but with elevation differences between valley floors and hilltop peaks most often less than a few hundred feet. The plateau is underlain by sedimentary rocks of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian age, which bear abundant fossils, mineral deposits such as iron, as well as natural gas, coal and petroleum. These regions fostered 17th-19th century industries locally, even into the 1930s days of mass production. To the south and east of the escarpment/plateau region, the folded mountains and alternating valleys are known as the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. These extend from the South of the Appalachians to northern New England except where it is cut by water gaps. In Northeastern Pennsylvania east of Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River, these ridge and valley features contain the richest and most widespread deposits of high energy clean burning anthracite coal in the worldthe Coal Region without which the American Industrial Revolution likely would have been delayed or not possible.

In 1859, near Titusville, Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in the U.S. into these sediments. [2] Similar rock layers also contain coal to the south and east of the oil and gas deposits. In the metamorphic (folded) belt, anthracite (hard coal) is mined near Wilkes-Barre and Hazelton. These fossil fuels have been an important resource to Pennsylvania. Timber and dairy farming are also sources of livelihood for midstate and western Pennsylvania. Orchards and vineyards exist along the shore of Lake Erie in the state's far northwest.

During the most recent Ice Age, the northeastern and northwestern corners of present day Pennsylvania were buried under the southern fringes of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Glaciers extended into the Appalachian valleys of Central Pennsylvania, but the ice did not top the mountains. At its furthest extent, it spread as far south as Moraine State Park, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Pittsburgh.

The shores

Pennsylvania has 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware River estuary, including the busy Port of Philadelphia, one of the largest seaports in the U.S. [3] Chester, downstream, is a smaller but still important port. The tidal marsh of Pennsylvania's only saltwater shore has been protected as John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum.

Pennsylvania also has a narrow inland freshwater shore at Erie, the Great Lakes outlet on Lake Erie in the Erie Triangle.

In the west, the Port of Pittsburgh is large and even exceeds Philadelphia in rank by annual tonnage because of the large volume of bulk coal shipped by barge down the Ohio River.

Ecological disasters

Pennsylvania has had several ecological disasters since the 19th century, including:

Climate

Pennsylvania map of Koppen climate classification Pennsylvania Koppen.svg
Pennsylvania map of Köppen climate classification

Pennsylvania has three general climate regions, which are determined by altitude more than latitude or distance from the oceans. Most of the state falls in the humid continental climate zone. The lower elevations, including most of the major cities, has a moderate continental climate Köppen climate classification (Dfa), with cool to cold winters and hot, humid summers. Highland areas have a more severe continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with warm, humid summers and cold, more severe and snowy winters. Extreme southeastern Pennsylvania, around Philadelphia borders a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), with milder winters and hot, humid summers.

Precipitation is abundant throughout the state with the primary climatic influences being the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and Arctic influences that cross over the Great Lakes.

See also

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  1. The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company used vertically integrated mining raw materials, transporting them, manufacturing with them, and merchandising by building coal mines, the instrumental Lehigh Canal, and feeding their own iron goods manufacturing industries and assuaging the American Republic's first energy crisis by increasing coal production from 1820 onwards using the nation's second constructed railway, the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad.
  2. The second coal road and canal system was inspired by LC&N's success. The Delaware and Hudson Canal and Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad. The LC&N operation was aimed at supplying the country's premier city, Philadelphia with much needed fuel. The D&H companies were founded purposefully to supply the explosively growing city of New York's energy needs.

The Pennsylvania Petroleum Railroad was a railroad in Pennsylvania originally chartered in 1871, during the Pennsylvania oil rush. Intended to provide an additional outlet from the Pennsylvania oil fields to Erie, Pennsylvania, it graded about ten miles of line in 1872, but was then caught up in the collapse of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, which halted the project. The company was foreclosed and reorganized under new names many times, but accomplished relatively little. It laid a short segment of line in 1890 in Titusville, Pennsylvania which was leased to a subsidiary of the New York Central to be used as a siding to a tannery. Further construction took place in 1913 with the idea of opening it as an electric railway to Cambridge Springs, but this too, was never completed.

References

  1. "Wiktionary Entry for Dutch". 4 December 2022.
  2. "Titusville, Pennsylvania, 1896". World Digital Library . 1896. Retrieved 2013-07-16.
  3. NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management: My State: Pennsylvania