Time a visit for St. Patrick's Day, when the parade in Scranton is one of the biggest in the country. Scranton is the Electric City, an old anthracite coal and rail town in northeastern Pennsylvania that many people know from the TV show The Office. About 75,000 people live in the city, with Italian, Polish and Irish roots visible in its neighborhoods, church spires and food. It is hilly, working class and proud.
Visitors can ride at Steamtown National Historic Site, go down the Lackawanna Coal Mine, walk Nay Aug Gorge or ski at Montage Mountain. Office fans can hunt down the Scranton Business Park sign. New York and Philadelphia are each about two hours away. Housing is cheap for the Northeast, which is a large part of the appeal. The tradeoffs are cold snowy winters, icy hills, flash floods after heavy rain, and property crime in some blocks away from downtown.
Cities with a similar character, anywhere on the site.
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- Known as
- The Electric City; Home of The Office (TV series setting); Anthracite coal and Steamtown heritage city; Birthplace of the Lackawanna Valley industrial era
- Founded
- 1840 Slocum Hollow ironworks (Scranton brothers); 1866 incorporated as a city
- Languages
- English; Spanish; Italian and Polish (heritage); Arabic; Vietnamese; Nepali
- Airports
- Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International (AVP), about 12 miles southwest in Avoca; Lehigh Valley International (ABE), about 60 miles south; Newark Liberty (EWR), about 120 miles east; Philadelphia International (PHL), about 125 miles south
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20%; bars $1-2 per drink; taxis and rideshare 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhops $2-5 per bag; tour guides 15-20%; counter service optional
About this data
Population and land area (25.31 sq mi), median value and rent are from Census QuickFacts (Vintage 2025 and ACS 2020-2024). Price is from Houzeo (2026); Redfin's city page could not be retrieved. Metro figure (Scranton-Wilkes-Barre MSA) is an approximate recent estimate, not taken from a Census table in this pass. Elevation, coordinates, founding, event names and months (some not verified as current), hotel ranges, tipping, cost-of-living index, airport distances, 1BR rent and crime context are approximate or from general knowledge and not verified. Confidence is medium. URLs were seen in search results but not load-tested
