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Capital of Pennsylvania · Dauphin County · capital since 1812 · 40.3°N 76.9°W
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna River, became Pennsylvania's capital in 1812, after Philadelphia and Lancaster. It is a small city of about 50,000, while Philadelphia has more than 1.6 million people.
Where Harrisburg is
Harrisburg is the seat of Dauphin County, at 40.27°N, 76.89°W, on the east bank of the Susquehanna River in south-central Pennsylvania. The river is nearly a mile wide at the city and dotted with islands, including City Island, which is joined to downtown by a walking bridge. Blue Mountain, the first ridge of the Appalachians, rises a few miles north. The Susquehanna flows on south to Chesapeake Bay, and the Maryland line is about 40 miles away. Interstates 81 and 83 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike converge here. Harrisburg is on Eastern Time.
How it became the capital
Philadelphia was the capital of the colony and the state, and of the United States, until 1799, when the legislature moved to Lancaster to be nearer the center of population. In 1812 it moved again to Harrisburg, a ferry town laid out by John Harris Jr. in 1785, which stood at the point where routes west through the mountains left the river. The Gettysburg battlefield is about 40 miles southwest; Confederate cavalry came within a few miles of Harrisburg in June 1863.
Population
Harrisburg had 50,099 residents in 2020, ninth among Pennsylvania cities. Philadelphia, the largest, had 1,603,797, and Pittsburgh 302,971. The Harrisburg–Carlisle metropolitan area, covering Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties, has about 590,000 people out of the state's 13,002,700.
The capitol
The Pennsylvania State Capitol was designed by Joseph Huston and dedicated in 1906, after an earlier building burned in 1897. It is a Beaux-Arts building of Vermont granite whose 272-ft dome was modeled on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The interior, with murals by Edwin Austin Abbey and Violet Oakley and tile floors by Henry Mercer, is among the most elaborate of any capitol. Theodore Roosevelt called it the handsomest building he had ever seen at its dedication; a graft scandal over its furnishings sent Huston to prison.
Distances to other cities
| City | Direction | Road distance |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia, PA | southeast | about 105 mi |
| Pittsburgh, PA | west | about 200 mi |
| Baltimore, MD | south | about 80 mi |
Three Mile Island, site of the 1979 nuclear accident, is in the Susquehanna about 10 miles downstream.
Related maps
- Pennsylvania map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
- Pennsylvania county map · blank Pennsylvania map · printable Pennsylvania map.
- All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
- Northeast region · Middle Atlantic division · Eastern Time Zone.