🇺🇸 United States · East Coast
Few cities in the United States breathe as much history as Philadelphia. Here, in the summer of 1776, the delegates of the thirteen colonies signed the Declaration of Independence, and eleven years later, in the same room in Independence Hall, they drafted the Constitution that shaped the country. That is why it is known as the Birthplace of America, and its historic district, with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Walking the cobbled streets of Old City is like stepping back to the birth of the United States.
But Philadelphia is much more than an open-air museum. It is a vibrant, food-loving city with a character all its own: the cradle of the cheesesteak, the beef and cheese sandwich that is almost a local religion; the bustling Reading Terminal Market; the vast Benjamin Franklin Parkway flanked by first-rate museums; and the Art Museum steps that Sylvester Stallone made famous in 'Rocky'. It is also the city of Benjamin Franklin, whose mark is on every corner, and of a sporting passion (the Eagles, the Phillies, the 76ers) as intense as its personality.
This guide covers the essentials of Philadelphia with a practical, warm eye: how to visit the historic heart of independence, which museums not to miss, where to eat the best cheesesteak, how to get around and which neighborhoods to see. Compact, walkable and a step away from New York and Washington, Philadelphia is one of the great gateways to the history and culture of the American East Coast.
Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by the English Quaker William Penn as the capital of his Pennsylvania colony, conceived as a refuge of religious tolerance. He gave it a name of Greek roots meaning 'brotherly love' (philos + adelphos), and laid the city out on a grid between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, a pioneering piece of colonial urban planning. Through the eighteenth century it became the largest and most prosperous city in the thirteen British colonies and a major intellectual center, driven by figures such as Benjamin Franklin. Its role in history is enormous: the Second Continental Congress met in Independence Hall and on July 4, 1776 approved the Declaration of Independence, and in 1787 the Constitution of the United States was drafted there. Between 1790 and 1800 Philadelphia was even the nation's capital, while Washington D. C. was being built. In the nineteenth century it became an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse, drawing waves of European immigrants (Irish, Italian, German) and African American migrants from the South. Although it lost ground relative to New York, it kept its historic and cultural character. In the twentieth century it went through the ups and downs typical of the industrial cities of the Northeast, but in recent decades it has reinvented itself as a first-rate cultural and culinary destination. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The 'key state': founded by the Quaker William Penn as a land of tolerance, cradle of independence in Philadelphia, setting of the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, of the world's first oil well and of Pittsburgh steel.
Read the history of Pennsylvania →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Philadelphia begins with a utopian project. In 1681, King Charles II of England granted the English Quaker William Penn an enormous stretch of land in North America, in payment of a debt the Crown owed his late father. Penn, persecuted in England for his Quaker faith, saw in those lands the chance to found a colony based on religious tolerance, freedom of conscience and peaceful coexistence. The territory was named Pennsylvania ('Penn's woods', in honor of his father).
In 1682 Penn founded the city that would be the capital of his colony and gave it a name loaded with symbolism: Philadelphia, from the Greek 'philos' (love) and 'adelphos' (brother), that is, 'the city of brotherly love'. The name reflected his ideal of a community where people of different religions and origins could live in harmony. Unlike other colonies, Penn sought to deal fairly with the Indigenous peoples (mainly the Lenape or Delaware), buying land from them through treaties instead of taking it by force, an unusual policy for the time.
One of Penn's great contributions was the urban design. Together with the surveyor Thomas Holme, he laid the city out on a rational grid between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, with wide, straight streets and five public squares distributed symmetrically. This 'green country town', conceived to avoid the fires and overcrowding of European cities, was a pioneering piece of American colonial urban planning and influenced the design of many later cities in the United States.
Through the eighteenth century, Philadelphia grew until it became the largest and most prosperous city in the thirteen British colonies in North America, and one of the largest in the British Empire after London. Its port on the Delaware River made it a commercial center of the first rank, and its climate of tolerance drew immigrants of very diverse origins: English Quakers, Germans ('Pennsylvania Dutch'), Scots-Irish, Jews and others, which gave it an unusual diversity for the time.
The city was also a major intellectual and scientific hub, largely thanks to one of the most extraordinary figures in American history: Benjamin Franklin. Though born in Boston, Franklin made Philadelphia his city, and there he unfolded his astonishing activity as a printer, scientist, inventor, writer and public man. He founded the first subscription public library, the first volunteer fire company, a university (the future University of Pennsylvania), the American Philosophical Society and a hospital, among many other institutions. His experiments with electricity brought him worldwide fame.
This combination of commercial wealth, diversity and intellectual life made Philadelphia the natural place where, in the following decades, the colonies would gather to discuss their destiny. The city had the infrastructure, the printing presses, the inns and the central location that made it the logical meeting point for the representatives of the northern and southern colonies.
Philadelphia's role in the birth of the United States made it one of the most important cities in modern history. As tensions grew between the colonies and the British Crown over taxes and the lack of representation, it was in Philadelphia that the colonial representatives decided to meet. In 1774 the First Continental Congress was held there, at Carpenters' Hall, and in 1775 the Second Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House, the building we know today as Independence Hall.
It was in that building that the event which changed history took place. On July 2, 1776 Congress voted to separate from Great Britain, and on July 4 it approved the text of the Declaration of Independence, drafted mainly by Thomas Jefferson, with its famous assertion that 'all men are created equal'. July 4 became the national day of the United States. The public reading of the Declaration in Philadelphia days later, and the ringing of the bells (among them the one that would later be the Liberty Bell), marked the symbolic beginning of the new nation.
During the War of Independence, Philadelphia was a military target and was occupied by British troops through the winter of 1777-1778, while George Washington's army spent that brutal winter at nearby Valley Forge. Even so, the city kept its central place as the seat of Congress and the political heart of the revolution.
Philadelphia's second great historic moment came a few years after independence. Once the war was won, the new and fragile independent colonies needed a firmer form of government than the one the first Articles of Confederation offered. So, in the summer of 1787, the delegates of the states met again in the same room at Independence Hall where the Declaration had been signed, this time to draft a constitution.
Through months of intense debate behind closed doors, presided over by George Washington, the delegates — among them figures such as James Madison and Benjamin Franklin — designed the federal system of government of the United States: the separation of powers, the two-chamber Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court. The Constitution of the United States, signed in Philadelphia in September 1787, is the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and its drafting in this city sealed forever its title as the 'birthplace of the nation'.
Because of its historic weight and its central position, Philadelphia was chosen as the provisional capital of the United States between 1790 and 1800, while the new permanent capital was being built in the District of Columbia (Washington). Through that decade, the city was the seat of the federal government, of Congress and of the presidency: George Washington and John Adams governed from here. In 1800 the government moved for good to Washington, and Philadelphia stopped being the capital, though it kept its enormous historic prestige.
Although it lost its rank as national capital, in the nineteenth century Philadelphia went through a deep transformation that made it one of the great industrial powers of the United States. Its location, its rivers, its port and its rail network made it ideal for industry. The city filled with textile mills, metalworking shops, shipyards, refineries and, above all, the enormous railroad industry, with the powerful Pennsylvania Railroad and locomotive manufacturing (Baldwin Locomotive Works). Philadelphia came to be known as 'the workshop of the world'.
That industrial growth drew massive waves of European immigrants — Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Eastern European Jews — who filled the working-class neighborhoods and gave the city its multiethnic character. Later, during the Great Migration, many African Americans also arrived from the South looking for work and a better life, forming communities that enriched the city's culture. Each group left its mark on the neighborhoods, the churches, the markets (such as the Italian Market) and the food.
In 1876, Philadelphia hosted the Centennial Exhibition, the first great world's fair held in the United States, which commemorated a hundred years of independence and showed the world the country's industrial might. The city filled with pavilions, inventions and visitors, in a moment of great civic pride. Toward the end of the century, monumental works such as City Hall went up, a symbol of the muscle and ambition of industrial Philadelphia.
The twentieth century brought Philadelphia the same ups and downs that many great industrial cities of the northeastern United States lived through (the so-called 'Rust Belt'). After decades of boom, deindustrialization hit hard in the middle of the century: factories closed or moved away, manufacturing employment collapsed and many middle-class families moved to the suburbs. The city's population, which had peaked around 1950, began to fall, and whole neighborhoods suffered decay, poverty and racial tensions.
From the last decades of the twentieth century and, above all, in the twenty-first, Philadelphia began a process of reinvention. The city bet on its historic heritage, its universities and hospitals (the 'eds and meds' sector, education and health, became key to its economy), its cultural scene and its food. The historic center was enhanced around Independence National Historical Park; first-rate museums appeared along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; and previously run-down neighborhoods were revitalized with art, restaurants and nightlife.
Today Philadelphia combines its immense historic weight — as the birthplace of the nation and home to UNESCO World Heritage jewels (Independence Hall, 1979) — with a vibrant contemporary identity: a culinary powerhouse known for its cheesesteak, a university, sporting and artistic city, and a first-rate tourist destination on the East Coast. The 'city of brotherly love' that William Penn dreamed of keeps reinventing itself more than three centuries after its founding.