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Forming the core of civic, commercial, and residential life since Philadelphia’s seventeenth-century founding, Center City has been a continually evolving experiment in urban living and management.
North Philadelphia gradually transformed from acres of forests to blocks of homes, factories, churches, universities, and other institutions built to serve the area’s diverse inhabitants.
From its colonial foundations as a farming hinterland to its dramatic post-WWII development, Northeast Philadelphia became a desirable destination for those seeking to improve their economic, social, and cultural standing.
Northwest Philadelphia, as old as the city itself, expanded and changed with the technological, legal, political, and cultural trends of Philadelphia.
With an array of ethnic, racial, and religious groups, South Philadelphia is an urban village with a history of immigration and working-class striving.
The first section of Philadelphia settled by Europeans came to national attention in the twentieth century as the Eastwick Urban Redevelopment Project. With the Philadelphia International Airport straddling this vicinity and adjacent Delaware County, Southwest Philadelphia also links the region to the world.
Reaching from the Schuylkill River to the western city line, West Philadelphia developed as a distant suburb of Philadelphia between 1720 and 1840.
Bucks County, one of the three original counties of Pennsylvania and the site of William Penn's home, Pennsbury, has its county seat in Doylestown.
The borough of Media, incorporated in 1850, is the seat of Delaware County, formed in 1789 from a portion of the original Chester County created when William Penn received his land grant for Pennsylvania.
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Montgomery County, formed in 1784 from a portion of the original Philadelphia County of William Penn's colony of Pennsylvania, has its county seat in Norristown.
One of the three original counties of Pennsylvania, Chester County has its seat of government in West Chester, which developed as a borough from its origins as the site of Turk's Head Tavern (1762).
Settled primarily by Quakers in the seventeenth century, Burlington County was a great site for commercial and agricultural development. Over time the area diversified in the formation of forty communities spread over 819 square miles.
Formed in 1844 from parts of what had been Gloucester County since 1686, Camden County maintained throughout its history a prominent role in the greater Philadelphia region, sustaining its close association with the city of Philadelphia and serving a central role in the social and economic life of South Jersey. Always a diversified area, the […]
Cumberland County, formed in 1748, over time developed a three-faceted economy of agriculture, maritime activity, and a glass industry.
Strategically located along the Delaware River opposite the southern portion of Philadelphia, Gloucester County played an important role in the region, as a location for waves of settlement, industry and recreation, and even defense during the American Revolution. Formed in 1686 with the intention of establishing townships and jurisdictional courts and named for Gloucestershire, England, […]
Before Philadelphia’s founding, Salem, New Jersey, was the first English Quaker colony along the Delaware River.
Linked to Philadelphia by a shared history of diverse settlement, town-building, industrialization, and suburbanization, South Jersey grew from seventeenth-century settlements by the Dutch, Swedes, and English.
Of the eleven counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan statistical area, New Castle County is perhaps the most varied geographically. Stretching from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain, it is marked by rolling hills and fast-flowing crystalline streams to the north, sluggish brown tidal creeks meandering towards Delaware Bay to the south. Its northernmost neighborhood at Claymont is virtually an outer suburb of Philadelphia; to the south, the county extends down to the latitude of Baltimore, where Southern culture begins to be detectable. The great majority of the county lies south of the Mason-Dixon Line (drawn between 1763 and 1768). Of all the counties around Philadelphia, it may be the most culturally heterogeneous, for no other touches three states, with distinctive influences flowing in. Southern New Castle County shares the Delmarva Peninsula with Maryland and partly drains into Chesapeake Bay; Wilmington is a stone’s throw across the river from New Jersey; scenic Brandywine Creek knits New Castle County together with Pennsylvania.
Chester was once a booming industrial city and housed one-third of the population of Delaware County. The city supported iron works, locomotive works, paper mills, oil refineries and a ship yard in the years after the Civil War, but industrial jobs vanished in the twentieth century.
Located a mile north of the Routes 611-202 convergence, thirty-five miles north of Center City Philadelphia, Doylestown has served as the government center of Bucks County for over two centuries.
Media was built on farmland in the 1850s as the new seat of Delaware County. Twelve miles from Philadelphia, Media is an early example of a “planned community,” both a commercial center and a place to conduct government business. The Media Theatre served as a movie palace for almost 75 years.
A prime riverfront location and convenient transportation made Norristown Montgomery County's center for both industry and leisure, but its fortunes changed in the later half of the twentieth century.
Strategically located, West Chester prospered as a county seat, lost population and businesses, then regained stature. The courthouse, built 1784-86, is the center of the historic district of West Chester.
Founded in the 1850s, Atlantic City was the first great middle-class resort in the nation. The Steel Pier became one of the most famous entertainment piers in the United States.
Between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bridgeton was an economic stronghold for industries including glass, iron, clothing, machinery, and food processing. The Cumberland County seat and courthouse are located in Bridgeton.
Camden thrived during the industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century, but as industry left in the late twentieth century, the city struggled in many ways.
Lawnside, New Jersey, has been one of only a handful of jurisdictions in the United States that has maintained a primarily African American population throughout its existence.
Mount Holly Township, New Jersey
Mount Holly, New Jersey, established by Quakers in 1677 and known variously in its early history as Northampton and Bridgetown, became the county seat for Burlington County through an act of legislation in 1793.
As the earliest English Quaker settlement along the Delaware River, the city of Salem was a key port at the mouth of the Salem River in the seventeenth century. Established in 1675 prior to both Philadelphia and Burlington, it was quickly overshadowed by Philadelphia. However, its proximity to the Philadelphia market by ship, steamboat, and railroad spurred additional industry during the nineteenth century, particularly glassworks, flooring manufacturing, and canneries. The closure of former manufactories in the late twentieth century created a pressing need for jobs and industry, as the city declined through population loss, unemployment, and poverty. Government programs and private organizations endeavored to renovate vacant buildings, decrease crime, and revitalize the Salem waterfront, with hopes of bringing new industries to the Port of Salem.
The state capital of New Jersey and the seat of Mercer County, Trenton parlayed its strategic location on the Delaware River into becoming one of the most productive industrial sites in the Greater Philadelphia region. A small city of only 7.65 square miles located halfway between Philadelphia and New York, Trenton conveyed its considerable status […]
Initially a small farming community, Woodbury became the seat of Gloucester County and emerged as a key center for transportation, manufacturing, and the legal and medical professions. The old Gloucester County Courthouse has loomed large since opening in 1854.
Delaware’s largest city and the New Castle County seat originated as a colonial trading area and ferry crossing and later became one of the country’s most vital industrial and chemical-producing centers.
