Welcome to PHILADELPHIA

Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth-most-populous city in the United States.

In 2008, the population of the city proper was estimated to be over 1.4 million, while the Greater Philadelphia metropolitan area's population of 5.8 million made it the country's fifth-largest. The city is the nation's fourth-largest urban area by population and its fourth-largest consumer media market as ranked by the Nielsen Media Research. It is the county seat of Philadelphia County (with which it is coterminous). Popular nicknames for Philadelphia include Philly and The City of Brotherly Love.

A commercial, educational, and cultural center, the city was once the second-largest in the British Empire (after London), and the social and geographical center of the original 13 American colonies. Ben Franklin took a large role in Philadelphia's early rise to prominence. It was in this city that many of the ideas, and subsequent actions, gave birth to the American Revolution and American Independence, making Philadelphia a centerpiece of early American history. It was the most populous city of the young United States, and served as one of the nation's many capitals during the Revolutionary War and after. Following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, it was the temporary national capital from 1790 to 1800 while Washington, DC was under construction.

Sports

Philadelphia's professional sports teams date at least to the 1860 founding of baseball's Athletics, which later moved to Oakland, California. The city is one of 13 U.S. cities to have all four major sports: the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League of Major League Baseball, and the Philadelphia 76ers in the National Basketball Association.

The city's professional teams went without a championship from 1983, when the 76ers won the NBA Championship, until 2008, when the Phillies won the World Series. In 2004, ESPN ranked Philadelphia second on its list of The Fifteen Most Tortured Sports Cities.[38] The failure was sometimes attributed in jest to the "Curse of Billy Penn".

Major-sport professional sports teams that originated in Philadelphia but ultimately moved to other cities include the Golden State Warriors basketball team and the Oakland Athletics baseball team.

Philadelphia is home to professional, semi-professional and elite amateur teams in cricket and other sports. Major sporting events in the city include the Penn Relays, Stotesbury Cup, Philadelphia Marathon, Broad Street Run, Philadelphia International Championship bicycle race, and the Dad Vail Regatta.

Philadelphia is home to the Philadelphia Big 5, a group of five Division I college basketball programs: Big 5 are Saint Joseph's University, University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, Temple University, and Villanova University. The sixth NCAA Division I school in Philadelphia is Drexel University. At least one of the teams is competitive nearly every year and at least one team has made the NCAA tournament for the past four decades.

In February 2008, Philadelphia beat several other cities in competition for the 16th Major League Soccer franchise. The Philadelphia Union will enter the league in 2010 calling Union Field at Chester their home (a soccer-specific stadium) in Chester, Pennsylvania

Shopping

Shopping options in Center City include The Gallery at Market East, The Shops at Liberty Place, Jewelers' Row, South Street, and a variety of standalone independent retailers. Rittenhouse Row, a four block section of Walnut Street, has higher-end clothing chain stores as well as hipster-inspired clothing stores. The parallel streets of Sansom and Chestnut in this area have some high end boutiques and clothing retailers. Old City has some emerging boutiques from local, as well as international merchandisers. The Reading Terminal Market includes dozens of take-out restaurants, specialty food vendors, and small grocery store operators, a few of which are operated by Amish farmers from nearby Lancaster County.

Philadelphia also has a few eclectic neighborhood shopping districts, usually consisting of a few blocks along a major neighborhood thoroughfare, such as in Manayunk or Chestnut Hill. The Italian Market in South Philadelphia offers groceries, meats, cheeses and housewares, historically from Italy, but now from many nationalities. Two famed cheesesteak restaurants, Geno's and Pat's, are located nearby.

There are several large shopping malls and strip malls in the region, including Franklin Mills in Northeast Philadelphia, and many in the suburbs, most notably the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, 19 miles from the heart of the city. The King of Prussia Mall is the largest shopping mall on the US East Coast and the largest in the country in terms of leasable retail space.

Arts

The city contains many art museums such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Rodin Museum, the largest collection of work by Auguste Rodin outside of France. The city’s major art museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is one of the largest art museums in the United States and features the steps made popular by the film Rocky.

The city is home to the Philadelphia Sketch Club, one of the country's oldest artists' clubs; and to a profusion of art galleries, many of which participate in the First Friday event. The first Friday of every month galleries in Old City are open late. Annual events include film festivals and parades, the most famous being the New Year's Day Mummers Parade.

Areas such as South Street and Old City have a vibrant night life. The Avenue of the Arts in Center City contains many restaurants and theaters, such as the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Academy of Music, the nation's oldest continually operating venue, home to the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia has more public art than any other American city. In 1872, the Fairmount Park Art Association was created, the first private association in the United States dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. In 1959, lobbying by the Artists Equity Association helped create the Percent for Art ordinance, the first for a U.S. city. The program, which has funded more than 200 pieces of public art, is administered by the Philadelphia Office of Arts and Culture, the city's art agency.

In particular, Philadelphia has more murals than any other U.S. city, thanks in part to the 1984 creation of the Department of Recreation's Mural Arts Program, which seeks to beautify neighborhoods and provide an outlet for graffiti artists. The program has funded more than 2,800 murals by professional, staff and volunteer artists and educated over 20,000 underserved youth in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.

Philadelphia has had a prominent role in music. In the 1970s, Philadelphia soul influenced the music of that and later eras. On July 13, 1985, Philadelphia hosted the American end of the Live Aid concert at John F. Kennedy Stadium. The city reprised this role for the Live 8 concert, bringing some 700,000 people to the Ben Franklin Parkway on July 2, 2005. Philadelphia is also home to the world-renowned Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale, who have performed their music all over the world. Dr. Robert G. Hamilton, founder of the choir, is a famous Philadelphian. The Philly Pops is another famous Philadelphia music group. The city has played a major role in the development and support of American rock music and rap music.

Hip-hop/Rap Artists such as The Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Beanie Segal, The Goats, Freeway, Schooly D, Eve and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes hail from Philadelphia. (see List of People from Philadelphia)