Pittsburgh

The forks of the Ohio were Native American country long before Europeans arrived, and the French explorer La Salle passed down the Ohio in 1669. In the 1750s France built Fort Duquesne at the confluence; a British force under Edward Braddock, with the young George Washington as his aide, failed to take it, and General John Forbes finally captured the forks in 1758. He began building Fort Pitt, named after the British statesman William Pitt, and the settlement became "Pittsborough". A confederation of Native American nations besieged the fort during Pontiac's War in 1763, and after independence it became the main base for settlers heading into the Northwest Territory. Glassmaking began in 1797, and Pittsburgh became a city on 18 March 1816.

Coal, iron and the rivers made it an industrial centre. Welsh steelworkers arrived in the 1830s, and in 1875 Andrew Carnegie began making steel at the Edgar Thomson Works, the start of the Carnegie Steel Company, later merged into U.S. Steel. By 1910 Pittsburgh was the country's eighth-largest city, producing between a third and a half of the nation's steel, and immigrants from Europe and Black migrants from the South came for the mill jobs. During the Second World War the mills ran around the clock.

The population peaked at about 680,000 in 1950. In the early 1980s the region's steel and electronics industries collapsed, bringing mass layoffs, and several large corporations left. The city reinvented itself around health care, education, finance and technology such as robotics, and steel sites such as the South Side Works were redeveloped. Ed Gainey, elected in 2021, became the city's first African American mayor, and Corey O'Connor took office as mayor in 2026; the same year the city hosted the NFL draft for the first time.

The steel barons left the city an unusually rich set of cultural institutions: the Carnegie Museums, the Carnegie Library, Heinz Hall and the Benedum Center, home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Opera, and a downtown Cultural District of theatres. Andy Warhol was born here, and the museum devoted to him is the largest in North America for a single artist. The playwright August Wilson came from the Hill District, where his house is now an arts centre, and Pittsburgh's public television gave the country Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Pittsburghese is a point of pride. Shaped by Scots-Irish, German and Eastern European immigrants and by African Americans, it has its own words — "yinz", a plural form of address, "slippy", "redd up", "gum bands" — loans from Polish and other European languages such as "babushka" and "halušky", and a staccato rhythm; speakers are affectionately called "Yinzers". German, Irish, Italian and Polish are the largest European ancestries, and Squirrel Hill, with around 20 synagogues, is the centre of Jewish life.

Sport binds the city together. The Steelers, the Penguins and the Pirates all wear black and gold, the official city colours. The Steelers, owned by the Rooney family since 1933, have won six Super Bowls and sold out every home game since 1972; the Penguins have won five Stanley Cups. The rivers host regattas every year, and the city's conventions range from the INPEX invention fair to Anthrocon.

About 303,000 people lived in Pittsburgh at the 2020 census, making it Pennsylvania's second-largest city, while the metropolitan area has over 2.43 million people, the largest in the Ohio Valley and Appalachia. The city proper has less than half its 1950 population even though the metropolitan area has grown again.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Allegheny Health Network are the giants of the economy, alongside 68 colleges and universities, among them Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne and the University of Pittsburgh, and a technology sector strong in robotics, software and energy research. Large companies including PNC, PPG, U.S. Steel and Kraft Heinz still have their headquarters here.

The city is divided into downtown — the Golden Triangle — and the North Side, South Side, East End and West End, each a patchwork of neighbourhoods separated by hills, valleys and rivers. The city has about 800 sets of public stairways, including hundreds of streets made entirely of steps, and crossing a bridge is part of many daily journeys. Lawrenceville and other old mill districts have been transformed by new restaurants and residents, while some outlying neighbourhoods are still marked by the loss of industry.

Pittsburgh's food comes from its mill-town immigrants. Pierogies — filled dumplings — and kielbasa are local specialities, and halušky is part of the local vocabulary. The chipped chopped ham sandwich, made with very thinly sliced processed ham, is a local lunch, and Klondike bars are also counted among the city's specialities.

The city's most famous sandwich comes from Primanti Bros., which opened in 1933 in the Strip District, then an area of factories, warehouses and shipyards: grilled meat, melted cheese, oil-and-vinegar coleslaw, tomato slices and French fries all piled between two thick slices of Italian bread.

The Strip District is the place to shop and graze — an open-air marketplace of grocers, bakeries and food stalls by day. The Kraft Heinz Company still has its headquarters in the city, and the summer Picklesburgh festival celebrates the pickle with downtown street stalls. Lawrenceville and East Carson Street on the South Side are the busiest areas for bars and restaurants.