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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 founding and history of the United States.
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 Erie.
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 original colonies 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.
The Pennsylvania Dutch region in south-central Pennsylvania is a favorite for sightseers. The Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Amish, Mennonites, and at least 15 other sects are common in the rural areas around the cities of Lancaster, York, and Harrisburg with smaller populations extending northeast to the Lehigh Valley and up to the Susquehanna Valley. Some adherents eschew modern conveniences and use of horse-drawn farming equipment and carriages, while others are virtually indistinguishable from non-Amish or Mennonites. Descendants of these plain sect immigrants, who do not practice the faith, often refer to themselves as Pennsylvania Germans.
Despite the name, the Pennsylvania Dutch are from various parts of southwest Germany, Alsace, and Switzerland, not the Netherlands. 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, which comprises roughly a third of the state, is a separate large geophysical unit. Several 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.
Pennsylvania is bisected in an S-curve, or roughly diagonally, by the barrier ridges of the Appalachian Mountains from southwest to northeast, forcing pre-20th 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 tributaries, which included nearly the entire length of 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, 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 with elevation differences between valley floors and hilltop peaks differences that usually vary by 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 world—the Coal Region —without which the American Industrial Revolution likely would have been delayed or not possible.
In 1859, Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in the U.S. near Titusville. [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.
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.
Pennsylvania has had several ecological disasters since the 19th century, including:
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.
Scouting in Pennsylvania has a long and rich tradition, from 1908 to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live.
The Great Appalachian Valley, also called The Great Valley or Great Valley Region, is one of the major landform features of eastern North America. It is a gigantic trough, including a chain of valley lowlands, and the central feature of the Appalachian Mountains system. The trough stretches about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) from Quebec in the north to Alabama in the south and has been an important north–south route of travel since prehistoric times.
The Susquehanna River is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeast states. At 444 miles (715 km) long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States. By watershed area, it is the 16th-largest river in the United States, and also the longest river in the early 21st-century continental United States without commercial boat traffic.
The Schuylkill River is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for 135 miles (217 km) from Pottsville southeast to Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city, where it joins the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries.
The Kittanning Path was a major east-west Native American trail that crossed the Allegheny Mountains barrier ridge connecting the Susquehanna River valleys in the center of Pennsylvania to the highlands of the Appalachian Plateau and thence to the western lands beyond drained by the Ohio River. Kittanning Village was the first major Delaware (Lenape) Indian settlement along the descent from the Allegheny Plateau.
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania encompassing the western half of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its other metropolitan centers. As of the 2010 census, Western Pennsylvania's total population is nearly 4 million.
The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Blue Mountain, Blue Mountain Ridge, or the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania is a ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Pennsylvania. Forming the southern and eastern edge of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians physiographic province in Pennsylvania, Blue Mountain extends 150 miles (240 km) from the Delaware Water Gap on the New Jersey border in the east to Big Gap in Franklin County in south-central Pennsylvania at its southwestern end.
Regions of Pennsylvania in the United States include:
Lehigh Gorge State Park is a 4,548 acres (1,841 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Luzerne and Carbon Counties, Pennsylvania. The park encompasses a gorge, which stretches along the Lehigh River from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control dam in Luzerne County to Jim Thorpe in Carbon County.
The Pennsylvania Canal, sometimes known as the Pennsylvania Canal system, was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements, including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The canal was constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items.
The geography of New York varies widely across the state. Most of New York is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. New York's Adirondack Park is larger than any U.S. National Park in the contiguous United States. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is a popular attraction. The Hudson River begins near Lake Tear of the Clouds and flows south through the eastern part of the state without draining lakes George or Champlain. Lake George empties at its north end into Lake Champlain, whose northern end extends into Canada, where it drains into the Richelieu River and then the St. Lawrence. Four of New York City's five boroughs are on the three islands at the mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island, Staten Island, and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island.
The Geology of Pennsylvania consists of six distinct physiographic provinces, three of which are subdivided into different sections. Each province has its own economic advantages and geologic hazards and plays an important role in shaping everyday life in the state. From the southeast corner to the northwest corner of the state, they include: the Atlantic Plain Province, the Piedmont Province, the New England Province, the Ridge and Valley Province, the Appalachain Province, and the Central Lowlands Province.
The Susquehanna Canal of the Pennsylvania Canal System was funded and authorized as part of the 1826 Main Line of Public Works enabling act, and would later become the Susquehanna Division of the Pennsylvania Canal under the Pennsylvania Canal Commission. Constructed early on in America's brief canal age, it formed an integral segment of the water focused transportation system which cut Philadelphia-Pittsburgh (pre-railroad) travel time from nearly a month to just four days.
The gaps of the Allegheny, meaning gaps in the Allegheny Ridge in west-central Pennsylvania, is a series of escarpment eroding water gaps along the saddle between two higher barrier ridge-lines in the eastern face atop the Allegheny Ridge or Allegheny Front escarpment. The front extends south through Western Maryland and forms much of the border between Virginia and West Virginia, in part explaining the difference in cultures between those two post-Civil War states. While not totally impenetrable to daring and energetic travelers on foot, passing the front outside of the water gaps with even sure footed mules was nearly impossible without navigating terrain where climbing was necessary on slopes even burros would find extremely difficult.
The Canal Age is a term of art used by science, technology, and industry historians. Various parts of the world have had various canal ages; the main ones belong to Egypt, Ancient Babylon, and the historical empires of India, China, Southeast Asia, and mercantile Europe. The successes of the Canal du Midi in France (1681), Bridgewater Canal in Britain, and Eiderkanal in Denmark (1784) spurred on what was called in Britain "canal mania". In the Thirteen Colonies in 1762 legislation was passed supporting in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania to improve navigation on the Schuylkill River through Philadelphia.
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.
