52 articles
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania: third-largest city in the state, county seat of Lehigh County, founded 1762 by William Allen. Majority-Latino city on the Lehigh River anchoring the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro.
Altoona, Pennsylvania
Altoona, Pennsylvania: Blair County city founded in 1849 by the Pennsylvania Railroad at the approach to Horseshoe Curve; 2020 population 43,963, declining; home of Sheetz and railroad heritage museums. Not the Iowa suburb of Des Moines.
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland: capital of Maryland and seat of Anne Arundel County on the Severn River; home of the U.S. Naval Academy (1845), St. John's College (1696), and the Maryland State House; population about 40,000.
Baltimore
Baltimore, Maryland's largest independent city and a Patapsco River port founded in 1729, had 569,997 residents in 2025, hosts the top U.S. roll-on/roll-off port, and recorded 133 homicides in 2025, a nearly 50-year low.
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda, Maryland: unincorporated Montgomery County CDP northwest of Washington, D.C., also called Darcy's Store until 1871. Home to NIH headquarters and Walter Reed; 68,056 residents (2020); Purple Line terminus expected 2027.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a Lehigh Valley city of about 75,000 founded by Moravians on Christmas Eve 1741, home of Bethlehem Steel (closed 1995) and a 2024 UNESCO World Heritage Moravian settlement.
Braddock, Pennsylvania
Braddock, Pennsylvania is an Allegheny County borough east of Pittsburgh, site of Carnegie's first steel mill (Edgar Thomson Works, 1875). Population fell from about 20,000 in the 1920s to 1,721 in 2020; John Fetterman was mayor 2006-2019.
Butler, Pennsylvania
Butler, Pennsylvania, also known as Butler, PA, is the county seat of Butler County, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, laid out in 1803 and the birthplace of the Bantam Jeep.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, Pennsylvania: county seat of Cumberland County, founded 1751, home of Dickinson College (1783) and Carlisle Barracks (1757), seat of the U.S. Army War College since 1951 and site of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879–1918).
Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania
Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania: a 9.06-square-mile inner-ring suburb on Philadelphia's northwest border, settled 1682 by Quakers from Cheltenham, England; 37,452 residents (2020), home to La Mott, Camp William Penn, and two National Register historic districts.
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester, Pennsylvania: Delaware County's only city, founded 1644 as Swedish Upland, renamed by Penn in 1682; former shipbuilding hub, population 32,605 (2020), in Act 47 fiscal emergency with a 2026 revitalization package.
College Park, Maryland
College Park is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., home to the University of Maryland's flagship campus and the world's oldest continuously operating airport.
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland, Maryland, county seat of Allegany County, incorporated 1815, named for the Duke of Cumberland. Former transportation hub and Maryland's second largest city; C&O Canal terminus; 2020 population 19,076.
Dover, Delaware
Dover, Delaware: capital of Delaware and Kent County seat, founded by William Penn in 1683, plotted 1717, permanent capital since 1779. Population 39,403 (2020); economy based on state government and Dover Air Force Base.
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Doylestown, Pennsylvania: county seat of Bucks County, a borough of about 8,300 surrounded by Doylestown Township; known for Henry Mercer's Fonthill Castle, Mercer Museum, and walkable downtown.
Easton, Pennsylvania
Easton, Pennsylvania: county seat of Northampton County at the Delaware-Lehigh river confluence, founded 1752 by the Penns, site of a 1776 Declaration reading, population about 30,000, home of Crayola Experience.
Ellicott City, Maryland
Ellicott City, Maryland: historic Howard County mill town founded in 1772 by the Ellicott brothers on the Patapsco River; county seat, National Register district (1978), population 75,947 (2020), known for 2016 and 2018 floods and the Safe and Sound mitigation plan.
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie, Pennsylvania: the state's fifth-largest city and only Great Lakes port, on Presque Isle Bay. Known as the Flagship City for Perry's 1813 Battle of Lake Erie fleet built there; 2020 population 94,831.
Frederick, Maryland
Frederick, Maryland: county seat of Frederick County, founded 1745 by Daniel Dulany the Elder, incorporated 1817, mayor-council government, population about 92,000 (2025 estimate), home to Fort Detrick, a National Register historic district, and MARC rail service to Washington.
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Gaithersburg is a Montgomery County, Maryland city of about 69,657 (2020 census), home to NIST's 578-acre headquarters campus, reached by the 1873 B&O Metropolitan Branch, with 44.3% foreign-born residents.
Germantown, Maryland
Germantown, Maryland: unincorporated Montgomery County CDP, third most populous place in Maryland (91,249 in 2020). Founded by German settlers in the 1830s; shifted to the B&O Metropolitan Branch in 1873; planned six-village corridor city on I-270.
Hagerstown, Maryland
Hagerstown, Maryland, the Washington County seat and "Hub City," founded 1762 by Jonathan Hager; a railroad and I-70/I-81 crossroads of about 44,000 people near Antietam battlefield.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: capital of the Commonwealth since 1812 and Dauphin County seat since 1785, on the Susquehanna River. 2020 population 50,099; founded from Harris' Ferry, chartered as a city in 1860.
Havre de Grace, Maryland
Havre de Grace, Maryland: a Harford County city at the mouth of the Susquehanna River on the Chesapeake Bay, named by Lafayette, incorporated 1785, burned by the British in 1813, home to Concord Point Lighthouse and the Decoy Museum, population about 15,000.
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Hazleton, Pennsylvania: Luzerne County city in the Pocono foothills, once an anthracite coal boomtown (peak 38,009 in 1940), now about 63% Hispanic; first US city to pass a 2006 Illegal Immigration Relief Act, struck down in federal court.
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey, Pennsylvania: unincorporated community in Derry Township, Dauphin County, founded 1903 by Milton S. Hershey around his chocolate factory; home of Hersheypark, the Milton Hershey School, and The Hershey Company headquarters.
Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania (formerly Mauch Chunk), borough and Carbon County seat renamed in 1954 for the athlete buried there; population 4,507; known for Victorian architecture, the Lehigh Gorge, and scenic railway tourism.
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Johnstown, Pennsylvania: Cambria County city founded in 1800 by Joseph Johns, a steel center hit by the 1889 South Fork Dam flood (2,209 deaths) and floods of 1936 and 1977; population 18,411 in 2020.
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
King of Prussia, locally KOP, is a census-designated place in Upper Merion Township, Pennsylvania, 20 miles from Philadelphia, named for the King of Prussia Inn.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, county seat of Lancaster County, founded 1730, city 1818, one-day U.S. capital in 1777 and state capital 1799–1812; about 58,000 residents, 40% Latino, historic Central Market.