Erie

Sister cities

• Lublin
• Mérida Municipality
• Dungarvan
• Zibo
• Mérida

History

Indigenous peoples occupied the shoreline and bluffs in this area for thousands of years, taking advantage of the rich resources. Sommerheim Park Archaeological District in Millcreek Township, west of the city, includes artifacts from the Archaic period in the Americas and the early and middle Woodland Period, roughly a span from 8,000 BCE to 500 CE. Europeans first arrived as settlers in the region when the French constructed Fort Presque Isle near present-day Erie in 1753, as part of their effort to defend New France against the encroaching British colonists. The name of the fort refers to the peninsula that juts into Lake Erie, now protected as Presque Isle State Park. The French term presque-isle means "almost an island". When the French abandoned the fort in 1760 during the French and Indian War in the Seven Years' War, it was the last post they held west of Niagara River. The British established a garrison at the fort at Presque Isle that same year, three years before the end of the French and Indian War. Erie is in what was the disputed Erie Triangle, a tract of land comprising 202,187 acres in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania fronting Lake Erie that was claimed after the American Revolutionary War by the newly formed states of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, as part of its Western Reserve, and Massachusetts. The Iroquois claimed ownership of present-day Erie. On January 9, 1789, a conference was arranged during which representatives from the Iroquois signed a deed relinquishing their ownership of the land in exchange for $2,000 from Pennsylvania and $1,200 from the federal government. Seneca Nation separately settled land claims against Pennsylvania in February 1791 for the sum of $800. It became a part of Pennsylvania on March 3, 1792, after…

Geography

Erie is situated in Northwestern Pennsylvania at (42.114507, -80.076213), on the southern shore of Lake Erie across from the Canadian province of Ontario. It is northeast of Cleveland, Ohio, southwest of Buffalo, and north of Pittsburgh. Erie's bedrock is Devonian shale and siltstone, overlain by glacial tills and stratified drift. Stream drainage in the city flows northward into Lake Erie, then through Lake Ontario into the St. Lawrence River, and out to the Atlantic Ocean. South of Erie is a drainage divide, beyond which most of the streams in western Pennsylvania flow south into the Allegheny or Ohio Rivers. Lake Erie is about above sea level, while the city of Erie is about above sea level. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , with being land and the remaining , or 1.03%, being water. Presque Isle State Park (referred to by locals as "the Peninsula" or simply "the beach"), is a recurving sandspit peninsula that stretches north into Lake Erie, providing a fine, natural harbor for Erie and offers of public beaches, wetlands, and fishing sites. Erie fronts Presque Isle Bay and is laid out in a grid surrounding Perry Square in the downtown area. The downtown area is separated from the waterfront by the Bayfront Parkway. however, the 1991–2020 normal seasonal snowfall is . Average annual snowfall in the decade 2010-2019 was . The adverse winter conditions caused USAir Flight 499 to overrun the runway at Erie International Airport on February 21, 1986, and caused whiteouts that were responsible for a 50-car pile-up on Interstate 90 on January 25, 2007. The coldest maximum temperature on record was in 1994 and the average coldest maximum between 1991 and 2020 was . By the close of the 2017–2018 snow season, Erie had…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  14,405
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  13,535
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  13,192
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  12,448
• Ring-billed Gull

  Larus delawarensis Ord, 1815 · Aves
  12,386
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  11,215
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  11,123
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  11,112

Largest nearby schools

• Erie HS
  High · Erie · 2,317 students · 15:1 ratio
• McDowell HS
  High · Erie · 2,205 students · 16.5:1 ratio
• Woodrow Wilson MS
  Middle · Erie · 756 students · 13:1 ratio
• Northwest PA Collegiate Academy
  High · Erie · 753 students · 15.4:1 ratio
• Strong Vincent MS
  Middle · Erie · 729 students · 12.4:1 ratio
• Grandview El Sch
  Elementary · Erie · 659 students · 17.8:1 ratio
• East MS
  Middle · Erie · 654 students · 11.7:1 ratio
• Harbor Creek Senior HS
  High · Harborcreek · 614 students · 14:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.9 — 2026-03-05
  3 km SW of Madison, Ohio
• M 2.7 — 2026-01-06
  4 km ENE of North Madison, Ohio
• M 2.5 — 2025-05-12
  4 km ESE of Madison, Ohio
• M 2.6 — 2024-06-01
  1 km E of Madison, Ohio
• M 2.6 — 2024-01-05
  3 km SE of Madison, Ohio
• M 3.6 — 2023-08-28
  7 km SE of Madison, Ohio