Delaware Valley

The Delaware Valley, sometimes referred to as Greater Philadelphia or the Philadelphia metropolitan area, is a metropolitan region in the Northeast United States that centers around Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-most populous city, and spans parts of four U.S. states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. With a core metropolitan statistical area population of 6.288 million residents and a combined statistical area population of 7.366 million as of the 2020 census, the Delaware Valley is the eighth-largest metropolitan region in the nation and North America, and the 68th-largest metropolitan region in the world.

In addition to Philadelphia, other major urban population centers in the Delaware Valley include Reading, Upper Darby Township, and Chester in Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, Camden, Vineland, and Cherry Hill in South Jersey; and Wilmington and Dover in Delaware. The Philadelphia metropolitan area's gross domestic product (GDP) exceeds $518 billion, making it the tenth-largest metropolitan economy in the nation as of 2022.

The Delaware Valley has been influential in the nation's history and economy. The area has been home to many people and sites significant to American culture, history, and politics. Philadelphia is sometimes known as "The Birthplace of America", since it served as the revolutionary capital during the colonial era, where the Second Continental Congress gathered at Independence Hall to unanimously adopt the Declaration of Independence, authorize the formation of the Continental Army, and appoint George Washington its commander to resist the British. Following the Continental Army's victory, Philadelphia served as the nation's first capital for most of the 18th century until 1800, when construction of Washington, D.C. was completed. In 1789, the U.S. Constitution, the longest-standing body of federal law, was ratified at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1789.

The Delaware Valley is one of the nation's leading regions for academia and academic research with a considerable number of globally-known and highly ranked universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, one of eight Ivy League universities in the nation. Other universities and colleges and Philadelphia include Drexel University, Thomas Jefferson University, Rowan University, Villanova University, Saint Joseph's University, Temple University, Rutgers University–Camden, La Salle University, the University of Delaware, Stockton University, and others. Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are a biotechnology hub. As of 2023, metropolitan Philadelphia had entered the ranks of the top five U.S. venture capital centers, facilitated by its relative proximity to the New York metropolitan area and its entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems. Elsewhere in the Delaware Valley, South Jersey has emerged as an East Coast epicenter for logistics and major warehouses.