Philadelphia
Discover Philadelphia
A concise introduction to Philadelphia, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Philadelphia was the capital of the United States for a decade, and both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were argued out and signed in the same room here. That room still stands, and you can walk into it.
It was also the first planned city in America. William Penn laid out a grid with five public squares in 1682, and that plan is still legible — which is why the centre is unusually easy to walk and hard to get lost in.
What surprises people is how much else is here: the third-largest art museum in the country, the largest Rodin collection outside Paris, a Barnes collection of Impressionists that would anchor a national gallery, and more public murals than any other American city.
It is a working city rather than a preserved one, cheaper than New York or Washington D.C., and famously direct about itself.
