Before Europeans arrived, the Delaware (Lenape) Indian town of Shackamaxon was located where Philadelphia now stands, specifically the Germantown neighborhood. Although the area lay within the bounds described in the 1632 Charter of Maryland, the Calvert family's influence never reached this far north, and the first European settlers were mostly Swedes (see New Sweden), who called it Wiccacoa. A congregation was formed in 1646 on Tinicum Island by Swedish missionary Johannes Campanius; in 1700, the group built Gloria Dei Church, also known as Old Swedes.

Philadelphia is a planned city, founded and developed in 1682 by William Penn, a Quaker. The city's name means "brotherly love" in Greek (Φιλαδέλφια). Penn hoped that the city, as the capital of his new colony founded on principles of freedom and religious tolerance, would be a model of this philosophy. During early immigration by Quakers and others, immigrants who purchased land in the city also received farmland outside the city; this was intended to allow the population to leave the city easily. Penn also mandated the construction of alleyways and open spaces, in the hope of controlling fires and disease, which were then common problems in London and other major cities.


Philadelphia was a major center of the independence movement during the American Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution were drafted here and signed in the city's Independence Hall. Tun Tavern in the city is traditionally regarded as the location where, in 1775, the United States Marine Corps was founded.

During the American Revolutionary War Philadelphia's population was split between Loyalists and Patriots. When the British Army took the city in 1777 many people lined the streets and sang 'God Save the King'. Upon the retaking of the city for the American cause in 1778 it was the turn of the Patriot population to line the streets in celebration, especially as the population had suffered through a bitter winter with many of the provisions going to the British Army. The subsequent harsh treatment of the Loyalists who had not fled the city was further suffering for Philadelphians.

For a time in the 18th century, Philadelphia was the largest city in the Americas north of Mexico City, and the fourth largest under the rule of the British crown (after London, Bristol, and Dublin).

In 1790, as the result of a compromise between a number of Southern congressmen and Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, the seat of the United States Government was moved from Federal Hall in New York to Congress Hall in Philadelphia, before assuming its current site in Washington, DC. In exchange for locating a permanent capital on the banks of the Potomac, the congressmen agreed to support Hamilton's financial proposals. Philadelphia served as capital for a decade, until 1800, when the Capitol building in the new federal city of Washington, DC was opened.

The city limits have been coterminous with Philadelphia County since The Act of Consolidation, 1854. Until then, the city consisted only of the area bounded by South and Vine Streets and the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. The expansion incorporated present-day West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and Northeast Philadelphia, as well as Germantown and many smaller communities.



An early railroad center, Philadelphia was the original home of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the world's largest builder of steam locomotives (which eventually relocated to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania). The Pennsylvania Railroad, once America's largest railroad by revenue and traffic volume and at one time the largest public corporation in the world, was headquartered in the city, as was its merger successor, the Penn Central, and in turn its freight railroad successor, Conrail.

In 1876 Philadelphia hosted the World's Fair, known as the Centennial Exposition. Memorial Hall and the expansive mall in front of it are remnants of this fair.

In 1926, the city held the Sesquicentennial Exposition to celebrate the nation's 150th birthday.

In 1976, Philadelphia was one of the participating cities in the United States Bicentennial observances that took place nationwide.

In 1985 Philadelphia police bombed the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia in order to combat a radical group known as MOVE. City officials allowed the fire to burn until it had consumed 62 area homes and left 11 dead.

Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme, laid out the city in a strict grid, with streets running either north-south or east-west. The north-south streets are numbered in ascending order from Front (instead of First), along the Delaware River, with the main north-south thoroughfare, Broad Street (instead of 14th) running midway between the two rivers. The east-west streets, many of them named for trees, e.g., Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, and Spruce parallel the main thoroughfare named High Street by Penn, but called Market Street since at least the early 18th century. Six blocks south of Market is South Street, the original southern boundary of the city. Vine Street, three blocks north of Market, was the original northern boundary.


Holme also planned five public parks, one at the intersection of High and Broad Streets in the very center of the city, now occupied by City Hall, and four others surrounding it now called Washington Square, Rittenhouse Square, Logan Square and Franklin Square. The eastern edge of Rittenhouse Square is on 18th St., four blocks west of City Hall, while the western edge of Washington Square is between 7th and 8th, about six and a half blocks east of City Hall. Both are the same distance south of City Hall. Both Logan Square and Franklin Square are located the same distances east and west of City Hall as Washington and Rittenhouse and two to three blocks north of Market Street, reflecting the southern squares. Fairmount Park is one of the largest municipal public parks in the world, at over 9,100 acres (37 km²). This figure includes all parkland within the city limits, as all 65 city parks are considered part of Fairmount Park and overseen by the Fairmount Park Commission, but the park proper, which runs north/south through the city, does occupy nearly half that area, at over 4,100 acres (17 km²) on both banks of the Schuylkill River and Wissahickon Creek.

The post-World War II era would see further changes. Under the leadership of Edmund N. Bacon, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission organized a master plan for the city, creating a variety of special planning, redevelopment, development districts and areas to coordinate their efforts. Projects that were headed by the new master plan were major redevelopment of Center City, including the Penn Center Area (replacing an immense, elevated railroad connector, locally known as the "Chinese Wall," located north of Market and West of Broad), Market East and Penn's Landing; new development and expansion in University City (focused mainly on the University of Pennsylvania); as well as the opening up of development on the fringes of the city, the Far Northeast and South Philadelphia Sports Complex. One of his enduring innovations is a group of small, semi-enclosed parks in the Society Hill residential area, connected by brick footpaths.

Bacon's efforts would also see changes in the transportation of the city, with the inclusion of the Center City Rail Connector, Vine Street Expressway, Delaware Expressway, and improvements to the Schuylkill Expressway. Many of Bacon's ideas, though not entirely as he had envisioned, can be seen today, with the basis of his master plan still influencing development in the city.

Philadelphia's economy is heavily based upon manufacturing, refining, food, and financial services. The city also has its own stock exchange.

The city is home to many major Fortune 500 companies, including cable television and internet provider Comcast, insurance companies CIGNA and Lincoln Financial Group, energy company Sunoco, food services company Aramark, Crown Holdings Incorporated, Rohm and Haas Company, the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, Boeing helicopters division, and automotive parts retailer Pep Boys.

The federal government plays a large role in Philadelphia as well. The city served as the capital city of the United States, before the construction of Washington, D.C. Today, the East Coast operations of the United States Mint are based near the historic district, and the Federal Reserve Bank's Philadelphia division is based there as well. Philadelphia is also home to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Partly because of the historical presence of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the large ridership at 30th Street Station, Amtrak also maintains a significant presence in the city. These jobs include customer service representatives and ticket processing and other behind-the-scenes personnel, in addition to the normal functions of the railroad.

Because of the presence of the federal government, the city has a large contingent of law firms. The city is also a national center of law because of the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Law School, Villanova University School of Law, and the Temple University Beasley School of Law. Drexel University also is opening a new College of Law in the fall of 2006. Additionally, the headquarters of the American Law Institute is located in the city.

Since the early days of rail transport in the United States, Philadelphia has served as hub for several major rail companies, especially the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad first operated Broad Street Station, then 30th Street Station and Suburban Station, and the Reading Railroad operated out of Reading Terminal, now part of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The two companies also operated competing commuter rail systems in the area, known collectively as the Regional Rail system. The two systems today, for the most part still intact but now connected, operate as a single system under the control of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the regional transit authority.

Philadelphia is also notable as one of the few North American cities to maintain streetcar lines. In addition to "subway-surface" trolleys (so called because during the years when the city was served by over 2000 trolleys and more than 65 lines, these were the "surface" cars that ran also in the streetcar subway), the city recently reintroduced trolley service to the Girard Avenue Line, Route 15, considered by some a "heritage" line; although the use of rebuilt 1947 PCC streetcars was primarily for budgetary reasons, rather than as an historic tribute.

Today Philadelphia is a hub of the semi-nationalized Amtrak system, with 30th Street Station being the primary local stop on the Washington-Boston Northeast Corridor and the Keystone Corridor to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 30th Street also serves as a major station for services via the Pennsylvania Railroad's former Pennsylvania Main Line to Chicago. 30th Street is Amtrak's third-busiest station in terms of passengers as of fiscal year 2003. It is also a terminus of New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Line.