Philadelphia, known colloquially as Philly, is the largest city in the U.S.

state and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the sixth-most populous U.S. city, with a
2018 census-estimated population of 1,584,138. [8] Since 1854, the city has had the same
geographic boundaries as Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania
and the urban core of the eighth-largest U.S. metropolitan statistical area, with over
6 million residents as of 2017.[6] Philadelphia is also the economic and cultural anchor of
the greater Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within
the Northeast megalopolis. The Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as
the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.[7]

William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of
the Pennsylvania Colony.[4][11] Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American
Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed
the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress, and
the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Several other key events occurred
in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War including the First Continental Congress, the
preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battle of Germantown, and the Siege of Fort Mifflin.
Philadelphia remained the nation's largest city until being overtaken by New York City in
1790; the city was also one of the nation's capitals during the revolution, serving as
temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C. was under construction. In the 19th century,
Philadelphia became a major industrial center and a railroad hub. The city grew from an
influx of European immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, Italy and Germany—the
three largest reported ancestry groups in the city as of 2015.[12] In the early 20th century,
Philadelphia became a prime destination for African Americans during the Great
Migration after the Civil War,[13] as well as Puerto Ricans.[14] The city's population doubled
from one million to two million people between 1890 and 1950.
The Philadelphia area's many universities and colleges make it a top study destination, as
the city has evolved into an educational and economic hub.[15][16] As of 2019, the
Philadelphia metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP)
of $490 billion.[17] Philadelphia is the center of economic activity in Pennsylvania and is
home to five Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is expanding, with a
market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016,[18] including several nationally
prominent skyscrapers.[19] Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any
other American city.[20][21] Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon
Valley Park in the same watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the
United States.[22] The city is known for its arts, culture, cuisine, and colonial history,
attracting 42 million domestic tourists in 2016 who spent $6.8 billion, generating an
estimated $11 billion in total economic impact in the city and surrounding four counties of
Pennsylvania.[23] Philadelphia has also emerged as a biotechnology hub.[24]
Philadelphia is the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps,[25][26] and is also the
home of many U.S. firsts, including the first library (1731),[27] hospital (1751),[27] medical
school (1765),[28] national capital (1774),[29] stock exchange (1790),[27] zoo (1874),
[30] and business school (1881).[31] Philadelphia contains 67 National Historic
Landmarks and the World Heritage Site of Independence Hall.[32] The city became a
member of the Organization of World Heritage Cities in 2015,[33] as the first World Heritage
City in the United States.[16] Although Philadelphia is rapidly undergoing gentrification, the
city actively maintains mitigation strategies to minimize displacement of homeowners in
gentrifying neighborhoods.[34]

History
Main articles: History of Philadelphia and Timeline of Philadelphia

Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape
(Delaware) Indians in the village of Shackamaxon. The Lenape are a Native American tribe
and First Nations band government.[35] They are also called Delaware Indians,[36] and their
historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, and
the Lower Hudson Valley.[a] Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland
during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from
intertribal conflicts.[36] Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases,
mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought
the Lenape. Surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American
Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them further west. In the
1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United
States to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under
the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape reside in Oklahoma, with some
communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario (Canada), and in their traditional homelands.
Europeans came to the Delaware Valley in the early 17th century, with the first
settlements founded by the Dutch, who in 1623 built Fort Nassau on the Delaware River
opposite the Schuylkill River in what is now Brooklawn, New Jersey. The Dutch considered
the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony. In
1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New
Sweden at Fort Christina (present-day Wilmington, Delaware) and quickly spread out in the
valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their military defeat of the
English colony of Maryland. In 1648, the Dutch built Fort Beversreede on the west bank of
the Delaware, south of the Schuylkill near the present-day Eastwick neighborhood, to
reassert their dominion over the area. The Swedes responded by building Fort Nya
Korsholm, or New Korsholm, named after a town in Finland with a Swedish majority. In
1655, a Dutch military campaign led by New Netherland Director-General Peter
Stuyvesant took control of the Swedish colony, ending its claim to independence. The
Swedish and Finnish settlers continued to have their own militia, religion, and court, and to
enjoy substantial autonomy under the Dutch. The English conquered the New Netherland
colony in 1664, though the situation did not change substantially until 1682 when the area
was included in William Penn's charter for Pennsylvania.

In 1681, in partial repayment of a debt, Charles II of England granted Penn a charter for
what would become the Pennsylvania colony. Despite the royal charter, Penn bought the
land from the local Lenape to be on good terms with the Native Americans and ensure
peace for his colony.[37] Penn made a treaty of friendship with Lenape
chief Tammany under an elm tree at Shackamaxon, in what is now the
city's Fishtown neighborhood.[4] Penn named the city Philadelphia, which is Greek for
"brotherly love," derived from the Ancient Greek terms φίλος phílos (beloved, dear)
and ἀδελφός adelphós (brother, brotherly). In fact, Amman was named Philadelphia during
its Greek and Roman periods. As a Quaker, Penn had experienced religious persecution
and wanted his colony to be a place where anyone could worship freely. This tolerance, far
more than afforded by most other colonies, led to better relations with the local native
tribes and fostered Philadelphia's rapid growth into America's most important city. [38]

Benjamin Franklin, 1777

Penn planned a city on the Delaware River to serve as a port and place for government.
Hoping that Philadelphia would become more like an English rural town instead of a city,
Penn laid out roads on a grid plan to keep houses and businesses spread far apart, with
areas for gardens and orchards. The city's inhabitants did not follow Penn's plans,
however, as they crowded by the Delaware River port, and subdivided and resold their
lots.[39] Before Penn left Philadelphia for the last time, he issued the Charter of 1701
establishing it as a city. Though poor at first, the city became an important trading center
with tolerable living conditions by the 1750s. Benjamin Franklin, a leading citizen, helped
improve city services and founded new ones, such as fire protection, a library, and one of
the American colonies' first hospitals.
A number of philosophical societies were formed, which were centers of the city's
intellectual life: the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture (1785), the Pennsylvania
Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts (1787), the Academy
of Natural Sciences (1812), and the Franklin Institute (1824).[40] These societies developed
and financed new industries, attracting skilled and knowledgeable immigrants from
Europe.

An 18th-century map of Philadelphia, circa 1752

Philadelphia's importance and central location in the colonies made it a natural center
for America's revolutionaries. By the 1750s, Philadelphia had surpassed Boston to become
the largest city and busiest port in British America, and second in the British Empire
after London.[41][42] The city hosted the First Continental Congress (1774) before the
Revolutionary War; the Second Continental Congress (1775–76),[43] which signed
the United States Declaration of Independence, during the war; and the Constitutional
Convention (1787) after the war. Several battles were fought in and near Philadelphia as
well.
Philadelphia served as the temporary capital of the United States while the new capital
was under construction in the District of Columbia from 1790 to 1800.[44] In 1793, the
largest yellow fever epidemic in U.S. history killed approximately 4,000 to 5,000 people in
Philadelphia, or about 10% of the city's population.[45][46]
The state capital was moved to Lancaster in 1799, then Harrisburg in 1812, while the
federal government was moved to Washington, D.C. in 1800 upon completion of the White
House and U.S. Capitol building. The city remained the young nation's largest until the
late 18th century, being both a financial and a cultural center for America. In 1816, the
city's free black community founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the
first independent black denomination in the country, and the first black Episcopal Church.
The free black community also established many schools for its children, with the help of
Quakers. New York City surpassed Philadelphia in population by 1790. Large-scale
construction projects for new roads, canals, and railroads made Philadelphia the first
major industrial city in the United States.

Throughout the 19th century, Philadelphia hosted a variety of industries and businesses,
the largest being textiles. Major corporations in the 19th and early 20th centuries included
the Baldwin Locomotive Works, William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company, and
the Pennsylvania Railroad.[47] Established in 1870, the Philadelphia Conveyancers'
Association was chartered by the state in 1871. Industry, along with the U.S. Centennial,
was celebrated in 1876 with the Centennial Exposition, the first official World's Fair in the
United States.
Immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany, settled in Philadelphia and the surrounding
districts. These immigrants were largely responsible for the first general strike in North
America in 1835, in which workers in the city won the ten-hour workday. The city was a
destination for thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine in the 1840s;
housing for them was developed south of South Street and later occupied by succeeding
immigrants. They established a network of Catholic churches and schools and dominated
the Catholic clergy for decades. Anti-Irish, anti-Catholic nativist riots erupted in
Philadelphia in 1844. The rise in population of the surrounding districts helped lead to
the Act of Consolidation of 1854, which extended the city limits from the 2 square miles
(5.2 km2) of Center City to the roughly 134 square miles (350 km2) of Philadelphia County.
[48][49] In the latter half of the century, immigrants from Russia, Eastern Europe and Italy,
and African Americans from the southern U.S. settled in the city.[50]
Philadelphia was represented by the Washington Grays in the American Civil War. The
African-American population of Philadelphia increased from 31,699 to 219,559 between
1880 and 1930.[51][52] Twentieth-century black newcomers were part of the Great
Migration out of the rural south to northern and midwestern industrial cities.