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Pennsylvania Counties

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Pennsylvania Counties

There are sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

Montgomery County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Norristown
Year Organized: 1784
Square Miles: 483

Court House:

P. O. Box 311
County Courthouse
Norristown, PA 19404-0311

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named perhaps for Montgomeryshire in Wales, for the Revolutionary hero Gen. Richard Montgomery, or for two legislators named Montgomery who advanced the bill to create the county.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on September 10, 1784 from part of Philadelphia County. Named perhaps for Montgomeryshire in Wales, for the Revolutionary hero Gen. Richard Montgomery, or for two legislators named Montgomery who advanced the bill to create the county. Norristown, the county seat, was laid out in 1784 and incorporated as a borough on March 31, 1812. It was named for Isaac Norris who owned land there.

Settled since 1685, the first residents were Germans, mainly pietists, in Germantown. Welsh, Scotch-Irish, English (mostly Quakers), and Swedes flocked to the area. The opening of the Schuylkill Canal in 1825 boosted the economy, followed by railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line passed through in the 1860s, giving rise to an elite residential area, "the Main Line." Intelligent farming has always been practiced on the county's good soil. Iron works arose in Norristown, Pottstown, and Conshohocken, and leather tanning was very important until the 1930s. Bernard McCready began a large textile factory in Norristown in 1826, with an enormous factory. Cigars, carriages, and paper were nineteenth-century Montgomery specialties, and marble is still quarried. From about 1900 to the 1970s steel, machinery, textiles, rubber, electrical, chemicals, and paint manufacturing were strong. The county is still a manufacturing giant. In 1992 it had the highest "value added from manufactures" figure of any Pennsylvania county. This was an amazing 9 ¼ billion dollars—more than double the figure for any other county. In addition, much personal income comes in from residents who work in Philadelphia. The county has the highest personal income rate and lowest percentage in poverty of the sixty-seven counties. Eighteen percent of the land is still farmed, and the county ranks eleventh in cash receipts from field crops. Both Republican Gov. Hartranft and Democratic presidential candidate Winfield Scott Hancock were natives.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 487 square miles (1,262 km²), of which, 483 square miles (1,251 km²) of it is land and 4 square miles (11 km²) of it (0.89%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Lehigh County (north)
Bucks County (northeast)
Philadelphia County (southeast)
Delaware County (southwest)
Chester County (west)
Berks County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Abington	township
- Ambler	borough	Incorporated Area
- Bridgeport	borough	Incorporated Area
- Bryn Athyn	borough	Incorporated Area
- Cheltenham	township
- Collegeville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Conshohocken	borough	Incorporated Area
- Douglass	township
- East Greenville	borough	Incorporated Area
- East Norriton	township
- Franconia	township
- Green Lane	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hatboro	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hatfield	borough	Incorporated Area
- Haverford	township
- Horsham	township
- Jenkintown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Lansdale	borough	Incorporated Area
- Limerick	township
- Lower Frederick	township
- Lower Gwynedd	township
- Lower Merion	township
- Lower Moreland	township
- Lower Pottsgrove	township
- Lower Providence	township
- Lower Salford	township
- Marlborough	township
- Narberth	borough	Incorporated Area
- New Hanover	township
- Norristown (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- North Wales	borough	Incorporated Area
- Pennsburg	borough	Incorporated Area
- Perkiomen	township
- Philadelphia	city	Incorporated Area
- Phoenixville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Pottstown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Red Hill	borough	Incorporated Area
- Rockledge	borough	Incorporated Area
- Royersford	borough	Incorporated Area
- Salford	township
- Schwenksville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Skippack	township
- Souderton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Stowe	township
- Telford	borough	Incorporated Area
- Towamencin	township
- Trappe	borough	Incorporated Area
- Upper Dublin	township
- Upper Frederick	township
- Upper Gwynedd	township
- Upper Hanover	township
- Upper Merion	township
- Upper Moreland	township
- Upper Pottsgrove	township
- Upper Salford	township
- West Conshohocken	borough	Incorporated Area
- West Norriton	township
- West Pottsgrove	township
- Whitemarsh	township
- Whitpain	township
- Worcester	township

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."