Delaware Valley

Delaware Valley
Greater Philadelphia
Southeastern Pennsylvania
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA
Metropolitan Statistical Area


Map of the Lower Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area
Country United States
State  - Pennsylvania
 - New Jersey
 - Delaware
 - Maryland
Principal cities Philadelphia
Camden
Wilmington
Reading
Trenton
Atlantic City
Vineland
Hammonton
Dover
Area
 • Urban 1,981.4 sq mi (5,131.7 km2)
 • Metro 5,118 sq mi (13,256 km2)
Elevation[1][2] 0 - 1,080 ft (0 - 329 m)
Population (2013 est.)
 • Density 2,746.32/sq mi (1,060.36/km2)
 • Urban 5,441,567 (5th)
 • MSA 6,034,678 (6th)
 • CSA 7,146,706 (8th)
  MSA/CSA = 2013, Urban = 2010
Time zone EST (UTC-5)
 • Summer (DST) EST (UTC-4)

The Delaware Valley is the valley through which the Delaware River flows. By extension, this toponym is commonly used to refer to Greater Philadelphia or Philadelphia metropolitan area ("the [Lower] Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area"), which straddles the Lower Delaware River just north of its estuary. The Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area is located at the southern part of the Northeast megalopolis and as such, the Delaware Valley can be described as either a metropolitan statistical area (MSA), or as a broader combined statistical area (CSA). The Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area is composed of several counties in southeastern Pennsylvania and southwestern New Jersey, one county in northern Delaware and one county in northeastern Maryland. The MSA has a population of over 6 million, while the CSA has a population of over 7.1 million (as of the 2010 Census Bureau count). Philadelphia, being the region's major commercial, cultural, and industrial center, wields a rather large sphere of influence that affects the counties that immediately surround it.

Some of the Delaware Valley's most well-known contributions to human civilization involve the region's higher education and medical institutions. The Delaware Valley has been influential upon American history and industry. The region are leaders in higher education, biotechnology, medicine, tourism and many others. With a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation.[3]

The area has hosted many people and sites significant to American culture and history, particularly in the arts, where Philadelphia alone has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city[4], politics, including many influential people involved in politics such as Benjamin Franklin and Joe Biden, and the American Revolution. Philadelphia is famously known as "The Birthplace of America"[5] as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both drafted and signed there. On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution, and has since promoted itself as "The First State".[6]

The Delaware Valley was home many other instrumental moments in the American Revolution , including the First and Second Continental Congress, the preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battles of Germantown, Brandywine, and Red Bank, the Siege of Fort Mifflin, the winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge, the Philadelphia Convention, and many others. Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals in the Revolutionary War, and served as temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction.

Today, the area is home to some of the most prestigious universities in the world, such as the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and Temple University.[7] The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is consistently ranked as the best business school in the world.[8]

Geography

In geology and geography, a strict sense of the term would incorporate the Delaware River's main drainage basin, and so encompass major tributaries such as the Schuylkill River and Lehigh River and their valleys or sub-basins. These extensions also apply culturally with decreasing degree gradually decreased by proximal distance because the ease of land travel enables a great deal of daily interaction; for example, the large number of commuters who travel daily 45–90 minutes creates cultural blends and parallel values.

The drainage basin of the Delaware River.


Population and economy

As of March 2011, the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD Metropolitan Statistical Area[9] constitutes the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.[10][11][12] Its CSA ranks 8th.

Based on commuter flows, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also defines a wider labor market region that adds Berks County, Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington metro area, bringing the total metropolitan population to 6.53 million.

Philadelphia's media market ranks fourth, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, in Nielsen Media Market size rankings. It also borders the New York metropolitan area located directly to the north of this area.

Such educational institutions as Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township and Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township are named after the region. Likewise, Frenchtown's now defunct newspaper The Delaware Valley News was another example of the usage.

Counties making up the Delaware Valley

Delaware

Maryland

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

Principal cities

Wilmington, Delaware
Ocean City, New Jersey

The following metropolitan areas (MSAs) — except the Trenton MSA — are included in the Combined Statistical Area (CSA). Although much of the Trenton MSA (Mercer County) is considered part of the Delaware Valley (from a cultural perspective) and often considered part of Philadelphia's media market area, it is classified as part of New York's CSA (by the federal Office of Management and Budget). The principal cities in each MSA are as follows:

Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)[14]
Reading Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
Vineland–Millville–Bridgeton Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
Atlantic City–Hammonton, New Jersey Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)[15]
Dover, Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
Ocean City, New Jersey Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
Trenton, New Jersey Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (part of the New York CSA)

Characteristics

Grave of some of the 57 Irish victims of Duffy's Cut in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Irish Americans make up the largest ethnicity in the Delaware Valley.[16]
Philadelphia's Chinatown is home to many Chinese and other Asian restaurants.
West Chester, Pennsylvania

The Delaware Valley is home to extensive populations of Irish Americans, German Americans, English Americans, Ukrainian Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Scottish Americans, Scotch-Irish Americans, Greek Americans, African Americans (over 40% of the city of Philadelphia's residents are black), Asians such as Chinese, Indian, Korean and Vietnamese, Armenians, Arabs and Turks, and Pakistanis, Israelis (while American Jews form a significant ethno-religious community), Hispanics. Within the Hispanic population, the vast majority are Puerto Ricans, though other groups include Dominicans and Mexicans.[17] There is a significant West Indian community. There is even a small Native American community known as Lenapehoking for Lenni-Lenape Indians of West Philadelphia.

Philadelphia's suburbs contain a high concentration of malls, the two largest of which have at least 5,000,000 square feet (460,000 m2) of office space, and at least 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) of retail. These are the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is the largest in the United States (leasable sq. feet of retail space), and the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which was the first enclosed mall on the East Coast. Malls, office complexes, strip shopping plazas, expressways, and tract housing are common sights, and more and more continue to replace rolling countryside, farms, woods, and wetlands. However, due to strong opposition by residents and political officials, many acres of land have been preserved throughout the Delaware Valley. Older townships and large boroughs such as Cheltenham, Norristown, Jenkintown, Upper Darby and West Chester retain distinct community identities while engulfed in suburbia. The fastest-growing counties are Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Gloucester. Upper Darby, in Delaware County is the largest township in the United States. Sometimes Reading is included in the Delaware Valley Metro Area.

Climate

The Delaware Valley has four distinct seasons with ample precipitation and is divided by the 0 °C (32 °F) January isotherm. Most of Philadelphia and the NJ portion, almost all of the DE and MD portions, part of Delaware County, and extreme southern portions of Bucks and Chester Counties have a humid subtropical climate (Cfa.) The remainder of the Delaware Valley has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa.) Snow amounts may vary widely year-to-year and normally do vary widely within the Delaware Valley. The region has only two ski areas: Bear Creek Ski and Recreation Area in eastern Berks County and Spring Mountain in central Montgomery County.

Using the -3 °C January isotherm as a boundary, all of the Delaware Valley is humid subtropical except for portions of Berks County and higher areas of northern Chester County. The warm-summer humid continental climate (Dfb) only exists in higher areas of Berks where all monthly temperatures average below 22 °C.

Colonial history

The valley was the territory of the Susquehannock and Lenape, who are recalled in place names throughout the region. The region became part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland after the exploration of Delaware Bay in 1609. The Dutch called the Delaware River the Zuyd Rivier, or South River, and considered the lands along it banks and those of its bay to be the southern flank of its province of New Netherland. In 1638, it began to be settled by Swedes, Forest Finns, Dutch, and Walloons and became the colony of New Sweden, though this was not officially recognized by the Dutch Empire which re-asserted control in 1655. The area was taken by the English in 1664.[31] The name Delaware comes from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who had arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1610, just as original settlers were about to abandon it, and thus maintaining the English foothold on the North American continent.

Transportation

Many residents commute to jobs in Philadelphia, Camden, and Wilmington with the help of expressways and trains. Commutes from one suburb to another are also common, as office parks have sprung up in new commercial centers such as King of Prussia, Fort Washington, Cherry Hill, and Plymouth Meeting.

Commuter rail

Formerly, the region was served by the Delaware Valley Railway.

Philadelphia's 30th St. Station has SEPTA Regional Rail and Amtrak service

Major highways

Traffic heading into Philadelphia on Interstate 95.

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Delaware

Maryland

Delaware River Bridges

Ben Franklin Bridge
Philadelphia International Airport

Airports

Colleges and universities

Parrish Hall at Swarthmore College and Cohen Hall, previously named Logan Hall, former home of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; The Wharton School is consistently ranked as the best business school in the world[33]

Delaware

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

Culture

Sports teams

Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies

Listing of the professional sports teams in the Delaware Valley

Media

The two main newspapers are The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, owned by the Philadelphia Media Network. Local television channels include KYW-TV 3 (CBS), WPVI 6 (ABC), WCAU 10 (NBC), WHYY-TV 12 (PBS), WPHL-TV 17 (MyNetworkTV), WTXF 29 (FOX), WPSG 57 (CW), and WPPX 61 (Ion). Radio stations serving the area include: WRTI, WIOQ, WDAS (AM), and WTEL.

Area codes

Congressional districts

The following congressional districts of the United States House of Representatives are located partly or entirely in the Delaware Valley CSA. Italicized counties are not part of the CSA.

Additionally, the Delaware Valley is represented in the United States Senate by the eight Senators from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Lexicon note

Some believe that the term "Delaware Valley" is not entirely a synonym for "Greater Philadelphia". "Greater Philadelphia" implies that the region is centered on the city in an economic and cultural context, while "Delaware Valley" is a more generic geographic term that does not imply that any part is of more consequence than any other. Several organizations, such as KYW Radio and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, consciously use the term "Greater Philadelphia" to assert that Philadelphia is the center of the region, referring to the less urbanized areas as "Philadelphia's countryside".[34] Others note that the customary media usage of the term omits the majority of the length of the Delaware River's valley that is not in metropolitan Philadelphia.

WPVI-TV uses the slogan, "The Delaware Valley's leading news program" for their Action News broadcast, since that program has led the ratings for news programs in the Philadelphia market for over 30 years.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the highest and lowest temperature readings during an entire month or year) calculated based on data at said location from 1981 to 2010.
  2. ↑ Official temperature and precipitation measurements for Philadelphia were taken at the Weather Bureau Office in downtown from January 1872 to 19 June 1940, and at Philadelphia Int'l from 20 June 1940 to the present.[18] Snowfall and snow depth records date to 1 January 1884 and 1 October 1948, respectively.[19] In 2006, snowfall measurements were moved to National Park, New Jersey directly across the Delaware River from the airport.[20]
  3. ↑ Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the highest and lowest temperature readings during an entire month or year) calculated based on data at said location from 1981 to 2010.
  4. ↑ The official climatology station for Atlantic City was at the Weather Bureau Office downtown from January 1874 to 15 June 1958 and Atlantic City Int'l (ACY) in Egg Harbor Township since 16 June 1958.[23] ACY's location in the Pine Barrens and distance away from the coast and urban heat island of downtown Atlantic City largely account for its markedly colder temperatures at night as compared to downtown; for example, from 1959 to 2013, there were 50 days with a low of 0 °F (−18 °C) or lower, while in the same period, the corresponding number of days at downtown was 2. The National Weather Service ceased regular snowfall observations at downtown after the winter of 1958–59.

References

  1. ↑ "Welsh Mountain". Retrieved May 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ "MyTopo – Welsh Mountain area". Retrieved May 5, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Global city GDP rankings 2008–2025". Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Archived from the original on May 4, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2009.
  4. ↑ Gateway to Public Art in Philadelphia Archived August 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., Fairmount Park Art Association.
  5. ↑ "Words and Their Stories: Nicknames for Philadelphia and Boston". Voice of America. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  6. ↑ "The First to Ratify" would be more accurate, as the beginnings of the states themselves date back to the Declaration of Independence, celebrated July 4, 1776, when what was to become the State of Delaware was still the three lower counties of Pennsylvania with the governor in Philadelphia, and not establishing independence from that body until September 20, 1776. According to Delaware's own website, "Delaware became a state in 1776, just two months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence." (ref-pdf) Therefore Delaware was actually the last of the thirteen colonies to establish itself as a state. Additionally, the Delaware State Quarter is minted with this nickname, yet shows Caesar Rodney on horseback in commemoration of how he was the last delegate to show up to the Continental Congress for the historic vote for independence. And with regard to the original Articles of Confederation, Delaware was the 12th of the 13 states to ratify.
  7. ↑ Tucker, Laura (November 25, 2014). "Philadelphia". QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. Retrieved October 11, 2015.
  8. ↑ "The 50 best business schools in the world".
  9. ↑ "OMB BULLETIN NO. 13-01: Revised Delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Combined Statistical Areas, and Guidance on Uses of the Delineations of These Areas" (PDF). Executive Office of the President -- Office of Management and Budget. February 28, 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 19, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-16. 37980 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area See also List of metropolitan areas of the United States and the sources there.
  10. ↑ Thomas, G. Scott (March 7, 2011). "Houston 5th in metro population rankings, study shows".
  11. ↑ Metro area populations (as of March 7, 2011), Business First, March 22, 2011.
  12. ↑ Annual Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Estimates
  13. 1 2 3 "OMB BULLETIN NO. 13-01" (PDF). Office of Management and Budget. February 28, 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 19, 2013. Retrieved October 31, 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 OMB BULLETIN NO. 09-01
  15. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 19, 2013. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
  16. ↑ "Global Philadelphia". Global Philadelphia Association. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Dominicans in the Delaware Valley". Medgar Evers College. Archived from the original on February 16, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2010.
  18. ↑ ThreadEx; search for location= "PA - Philadelphia", variable= "Station thread"
  19. 1 2 3 4 "NowData - NOAA Online Weather Data". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  20. ↑ Wood, Anthony R. "Snow total at airport gets a boost A new measuring station and technique likely contributed to two 8-inch-plus readings". Philly.com. The Inquirer. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  21. ↑ "Station Name: PA PHILADELPHIA INTL AP". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 2014-03-13.
  22. ↑ "WMO Climate Normals for PHILADELPHIA/INT'L ARPT PA 1961–1990". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
  23. ↑ Threadex
  24. ↑ "Station Name: NJ ATLANTIC CITY". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved March 30, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Station Name: NJ ATLANTIC CITY INTL AP". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 2014-03-14.
  26. ↑ "WMO Climate Normals for ATLANTIC CITY, NJ 1961–1990". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
  27. ↑ Average weather for Doylestown Weather Channel Retrieved May 12, 2008
  28. ↑ "Climate Statistics for Reading, Pennsylvania". Retrieved March 10, 2012.
  29. ↑ "Station Name: DE DOVER". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
  30. ↑ "Station Name: DE WILMINGTON NEW CASTLE CO AP". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  31. ↑
  32. ↑ "New Hope-Lambertville Route 202 Toll Bridge". Delaware River Joint Toll Brice Commission.
  33. ↑ "The 50 best business schools in the world.".
  34. ↑ Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.

Further reading

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Delaware Valley.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Delaware Valley.

Coordinates: 39°52′37″N 75°19′23″W / 39.877°N 75.323°W / 39.877; -75.323

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