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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.

York County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: York
Year Organized: 1749
Square Miles: 905

Court House:

45 N. George Street
County Courthouse
York, PA 17401-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named either for the Duke of York, an early patron of the Penn family, or for the city and shire of York in England.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on August 19, 1749, from part of Lancaster County and named either for the Duke of York, an early patron of the Penn family, or for the city and shire of York in England. The name may have been suggested by the proximity to Lancaster County, as the names are used together often in English history. York, the county seat, was laid out in 1741 and incorporated as a borough on September 24, 1787. It was chartered as a city on January 11, 1887.

Pennsylvania's 1736 purchase from the Iroquois encompassed this area. The town of York was termed "Yorktown" in the colonial period. Cresap's War showed Maryland's desire to have the area, but it was yielded in 1760, and the matter finalized by the Mason-Dixon Line. York was the capital of the US from September 1777 to June 1778, where the Articles of Confederation were adopted. Agriculturally abundant from the start, York was very productive in corn, wheat, hemp, and whiskey. There was a canal from York to the Susquehanna in 1833. Five railroads served the county, and in the 1920s the Lincoln Highway boosted truck transportation. Products could be sold in both the Philadelphia and Baltimore markets and, later on, Pittsburgh as well. Early iron manufacturing did not lead to steel making but spawned metal products specialties such as farm implements that are still productive. Cigar making was a leading business until the 1930s. Wagonmaking led to truck, auto, and railroad car manufacture. Building water wheels led to making turbines. Papermaking began early, followed by a printing industry. Ice cutting spawned refrigeration and air conditioners. Confections, safe vaults, barbells, quarried slate, chains, organs and pianos, rope, and silk were produced. Inventors and innovators gravitated toward York. High-speed steel, metal building panels and the Jeep were conceived here. The "York Plan" was a World War II system for cooperation to mobilize small industry to win the war; it was replayed for the Korean War. Deindustrialization has been less severe than other Pennsylvania industrial counties, although local ownership dropped. York is the sixth Pennsylvania county in value added to the economy from manufactures. Farms cover 48 percent of the land. Long the second most productive farm county (behind Lancaster), it is now seventh. About half the county is farmed; York is second only to Lancaster in number of farms. It is the leader in wheat and soybeans, and strong in corn, hogs, cattle, fruit and sheep.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 910 square miles (2,358 km²), of which, 904 square miles (2,343 km²) of it is land and 6 square miles (15 km²) of it (0.64%) is water. The county is bound to its eastern border by the Susquehanna River. Its southern border is the Mason-Dixon Line, which separates Pennsylvania and Maryland

Neighboring Counties:

Cumberland County (north)
Dauphin County (northeast)
Lancaster County (east)
Harford County, Maryland (southeast)
Baltimore County, Maryland (south)
Carroll County, Maryland (southwest)
Adams County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Bridgeton	township
- Carroll	township
- Chanceford	township
- Codorus	township
- Conewago	township
- Cross Roads	borough	Incorporated Area
- Dallastown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Delta	borough	Incorporated Area
- Dillsburg	borough	Incorporated Area
- Dover	borough	Incorporated Area
- East Hopewell	township
- East Manchester	township
- East Prospect	borough	Incorporated Area
- Fawn	township
- Fawn Grove	borough	Incorporated Area
- Felton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Franklintown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Glen Rock	borough	Incorporated Area
- Goldsboro	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hallam	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hanover	borough	Incorporated Area
- Heidelberg	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hellam	township
- Jacobus	borough	Incorporated Area
- Lewisberry	borough	Incorporated Area
- Loganville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Lower Chanceford	township
- Lower Windsor	township
- Manchester	borough	Incorporated Area
- Monaghan	township
- Mount Wolf	borough	Incorporated Area
- New Freedom	borough	Incorporated Area
- North Codorus	township
- North Hopewell	township
- North York	borough	Incorporated Area
- Railroad	borough	Incorporated Area
- Red Lion	borough	Incorporated Area
- Seven Valleys	borough	Incorporated Area
- Shrewsbury	borough	Incorporated Area
- Silver Lake	township
- Spring Garden	township
- Spring Grove	borough	Incorporated Area
- Springettsbury	township
- Stewartstown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Wellsville	borough	Incorporated Area
- West Manchester	township
- West Manheim	township
- West York	borough	Incorporated Area
- Windsor	borough	Incorporated Area
- Winterstown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Wrightsville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Yoe	borough	Incorporated Area
- York (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- York Haven	borough	Incorporated Area
- Yorkana	borough	Incorporated Area

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."