Pennsylvania Summary

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is home to some of America’s most cherished historic and cultural sites. But it also has beleaguered post-industrial cities, picturesque farmlands, coal mines, forested mountains, rivers, and renowned centers of higher education and research. Several large Native American groups, including the Delaware and Susquehannock, occupied the area prior to when English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Delaware Bay in 1609. The Dutch, Swedes, and English followed.

In 1681, in repayment of a Crown debt owed to the father of the restive Quaker William Penn, England’s King Charles II signed a charter making Penn proprietor of much of the region west of the Delaware River. The colony was named for his father and its sylvan landscape. Penn planned the colony as a “holy experiment” in religious freedom and lawmaking with citizen participation, and Pennsylvania became a haven for persecuted religious minorities. The Old Order Amish—a conservative, Bible-based sect of primarily German ancestry—rolled into the twenty-first century much as when they first arrived in the early 1700s. Known as the “Plain People,” the more conservative of the Amish, Mennonites, and similar farming groups still reject such trappings of modern life as telephones and cars. \r\nSpawned by pacifists, Pennsylvania was, ironically, the heart of a rebellion against Britain during the Revolutionary War, and the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, at Gettysburg.

With more than 12 million people, Pennsylvania is the sixth largest state in population and the 32nd largest in area. Though it remains an important manufacturing and industrial state, service-oriented businesses such as health care, banking, and retailing now comprise the largest portion of the economy.

Pennsylvania has access to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. Winters are cold and summers are warm and humid. Its topography ranges from the coastal plains to the hills and valleys of the Pocono and Allegheny Mountains, popular places for hiking, camping, fishing, and skiing. It includes three major river systems: the Ohio, Susquehanna, and Delaware, which are popular with those who enjoy outdoor activities such as canoeing, rafting, and whitewater kayaking.