The Pennsylvania Portal

The coat of arms of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania (/ˌpɛnsɪlˈvniə/ PEN-sil-VAY-nee-ə; Pennsylvania German: Pennsilfaani), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. Pennsylvania borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east.

Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the United States, with over 13 million residents as of the 2020 United States census. The state is the 33rd-largest by area and has the ninth-highest population density among all states. The largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is the southeastern Delaware Valley, which includes and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth-most populous city. The second-largest metropolitan area, Greater Pittsburgh, is centered in and around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest city. The state's subsequent five most populous cities are Allentown, Reading, Erie, Scranton, and Bethlehem. The state capital is Harrisburg.

Pennsylvania's geography is highly diverse. The Appalachian Mountains run through the center of the state; the Allegheny and Pocono mountains span much of Northeastern Pennsylvania; close to 60% of the state is forested. While it has only 140 miles (225 km) of waterfront along Lake Erie and the Delaware River, Pennsylvania has the most navigable rivers of any state in the nation, including the Allegheny, Delaware, Genesee, Ohio, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and others. (Full article...)

Featured article - show another

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

photograph of Ezra H. Pound
Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn


Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).

Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold." (Full article...)
List of Featured articles

Selected geography article - show another

Plunketts Creek looking upstream, just north of the mouth in Plunketts Creek Township

Plunketts Creek is an approximately 6.2-mile-long (10 km) tributary of Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Two unincorporated villages and a hamlet are on the creek, and its watershed drains 23.6 square miles (61 km2) in parts of five townships. The creek is a part of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin via Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch Susquehanna and Susquehanna Rivers.

Plunketts Creek's name comes from the first owner of the land including the creek's mouth, and the creek has given its name to two townships (although one has since changed its name). The creek flows southwest and then south through the dissected Allegheny Plateau, through rock from the Mississippian sub-period and Devonian period. Much of the Plunketts Creek valley is composed of various glacial deposits, chiefly alluvium. (Full article...)
List of geography articles

Selected image - show another


Credit: Nicholas T.
The Delaware Water Gap from Kittatinny View with I-80 on the Delaware side..

Did you know - show different entries

Related portals

Wikiprojects

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

From left to right, Towers A, B, and C

Litchfield Towers, commonly referred to on campus as "Towers", is a complex of residence halls at the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Litchfield Towers is both the largest and tallest residence hall at the University of Pittsburgh, housing approximately 1,850 students.

Designed by the architectural firm of Deeter & Ritchey, the complex was completed in 1963 and was named for former chancellor Edward Litchfield following his death in an airplane crash in 1968. The complex consists of three towers, which during construction were designated A, B, and C in the architectural plans. The names stuck after the towers were completed, and the towers are still so named today. (Full article...)
List of Good articles

Selected article - show another

The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State and sometimes by the acronymn PSU, is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, In 1863, Penn State was named the state's first land-grant university. Its primary campus, known as Penn State University Park, is located in State College and College Township in Pennsylvania.

In addition to its land-grant designation, the university is a sea-grant, space-grant, and one of only seven sun-grant universities. research consortia. The university has two law schools: Penn State Law on the school's University Park campus and Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle. The College of Medicine is in Hershey. The university maintains 19 commonwealth campuses and five special mission campuses located across Pennsylvania. (Full article...)

Pennsylvania news

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

State facts

State Facts
Pennsylvania's largest city Philadelphia
  • Nickname: The Keystone State
  • Capital: Harrisburg
  • Largest city: Philadelphia
  • Total area: 119,283 square kilometers (46,055 square miles)
  • Population (2000 census): 12,281,054
  • Date admitted to the Union: December 12, 1787 (2nd)
State symbols
Mountain laurel, Pennsylvania's state flower

Pennsylvania topics

General images

The following are images from various Pennsylvania-related articles on Wikipedia.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals