Swatara Creek (nicknamed the Swatty) is a 72-mile-long (116 km)[1] tributary of the Susquehanna River in east-central Pennsylvania in the United States.

[2] Ancient Native Americans built dozens of eel-weirs, V-shaped rock barriers designed to funnel eels to facilitate capture, on the Susquehanna and its tributaries.

After emerging from the ridge the creek flows southwest, north of Hershey, past Hummelstown, and joins the Susquehanna at Royalton, in Middletown.

At the time of the initial construction in 1792, Philadelphia was involved in an intense rivalry with Baltimore, Maryland, for supremacy as a shipping port.

The canal was backed by Philadelphia businessmen as a means to divert commercial traffic from following the Susquehanna downriver to the Chesapeake Bay, its more natural destination.

On September 8, 2011, the creek reached a record height of 26.8 feet (8.2 m) near Hershey, following devastating rains from Tropical Storm Lee and remnants of Hurricane Irene, the highest since measurements began in 1975.