Philadelphia is a large city in the US state of Pennsylvania. People who live there, and many other Americans, just call it Philly. It sits on a river and grew as a port; factories and banks still matter, though the old heavy industry is not what it once was. In 1776, leaders met there and signed the Declaration of Independence — the paper that said the American colonies would no longer belong to Britain. Schoolbooks often say it was the first capital of the new United States. That is the tidy story: the city was the heart of the new country for years, and the government did sit there for a time. Though actually, under the Constitution the capital was New York first, then Philadelphia, and later they built Washington, D.C. Dictionaries still sometimes call it the fifth-largest US city; Phoenix has since grown past it, so it is around sixth now. The name is Greek and means something like “brotherly love,” which is why you also hear “the City of Brotherly Love.”