Philadelphia, city and port, coextensive with Philadelphia county, is in southeastern Pennsylvania. It is situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Philadelphia is the second-largest city on the East Coast and fifth-largest in the country and the hub of the nation's sixth-largest metropolitan area. Philadelphia is ranked the fifth most walkable large city in the U.S. with 93 buses, 15 rails, two subways and six light rail lines for getting around the city more easily.

Philadelphia was originally settled by Native American tribes, particularly the Lenape hunter gatherers, around 8000 B.C.. The written history of Philadelphia begins in 1682, when the city was founded by William Penn in the English Crown Province of Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.

The country's first World Heritage City, Philadelphia is also the birthplace of the United States, where our Founding Fathers met, discussed, debated and formed a new country.

Philadelphia is known throughout the world as the birthplace of American democracy. Visitors come by the millions each year to walk the streets and see the buildings where Franklin, Jefferson, and many others debated the founding principles of the United States. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were signed in Philadelphia (in what is now known as Independence Hall), and the city served as the nation’s first capital from the Revolutionary War through 1800.

Few of Philadelphia’s visitors are likely aware that the city is also the birthplace of the U.S. Navy. Dating back to the founding of the country in 1776, the Continental Congress leased land along Philadelphia’s Front Street docks to support naval defense. On March 27, 1794, President George Washington signed the Naval Act, which called for the purchase of six frigates to defend the country.