William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia is one of the oldest municipalities in the United States and played a central role in the American Revolution and the country's founding. The Delaware Valley's 2020 population of 7.38 million makes it the eighth largest combined statistical area in the United States. Philadelphia is the economic and cultural center of the greater Delaware Valley along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill rivers within the Northeast megalopolis. 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 seventh largest metropolitan area in the nation, with more than 6 million residents as of 2017.
With a population of 1,603,797 as of 2020, it is the sixth-most-populous city in the United States and the second-most populous city on the East Coast of the United States, behind New York City.
Philadelphia is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States. Broad Street Line, Market–Frankford Line, PATCO Speedline
