Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center.

The strong cultural identity of Western Pennsylvania is reinforced by the state supreme court, which convenes in Pittsburgh in addition to Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

In alphabetical order those counties are: Long recognized as a powerhouse of American industry, Western Pennsylvania is a large geophysical and socio-economic entity.

It encompasses that portion of the state to the west of the Appalachian divide and included within the Mississippi drainage system of rivers.

Incredibly, after several decades of border war and 150 years of high-rent city-center urbanization, the original 1764 blockhouse from Fort Pitt still stands here and is one of the oldest buildings in the region.