Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Where Berks County sits

Berks County spreads across the Schuylkill River valley in southeastern Pennsylvania, with the Blue Mountain ridge along its northern edge and Pennsylvania Dutch farm valleys through the middle. Reading, the county seat, sits at the center, ringed by boroughs and townships that shift from city blocks to open farmland within a few miles. Interstate 78 crosses the northern tier past Hamburg, Route 222 runs diagonally from the Lehigh Valley toward Lancaster, and Route 422 ties Reading to Philadelphia's western suburbs, about 60 miles away.

Older than the United States

The county was formed in 1752 from parts of Philadelphia, Chester, and Lancaster counties and named for Berkshire, England, the ancestral home of the Penn family. Reading was laid out along the Schuylkill a few years earlier and grew into an iron town, then a railroad town: the Reading Railroad of Monopoly fame was chartered here in 1833 to haul Schuylkill County coal to Philadelphia. Daniel Boone was born in 1734 at what is now the Daniel Boone Homestead near Birdsboro, Hopewell Furnace ran its cold-blast iron furnace in the county's southern hills for over a century, and the hex signs still painted on barns across the northern townships mark the Pennsylvania Dutch families who have farmed here since the early 1700s.

What Berks County is known for

Ask around and you will hear the same answers: pretzels (Reading is the Pretzel City, and the county still anchors Pennsylvania's snack food belt), mushrooms and eggs from some of the largest farm operations in the country, and the Pagoda, the 1908 Japanese-style landmark that watches over the city from Mount Penn. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the world's first refuge for birds of prey, draws visitors to the Blue Mountain ridge every fall migration. Five covered bridges still cross the county's creeks. And for two decades Reading called itself the Outlet Capital of the World, a retail era that shaped the shopping corridors of Wyomissing and Muhlenberg Township.

Berks County today

Today the county runs on a wider mix: warehouses and logistics along I-78, family farms and food processors, health systems that rank among the region's largest employers, and East Penn Manufacturing in Lyon Station, a family-owned battery maker that grew from a one-room shop into one of the largest of its kind in the world. Reading's Latino community has remade downtown dining (start with our where to eat guide), GoggleWorks turned a former goggle factory into one of the largest arts centers in the country, and five colleges and universities call the county home, from Kutztown University to Penn State Berks and Albright College. We cover all of it: the news desk reports from the county's public meetings, the events calendar tracks what is happening this week, and the directory connects you to the businesses that make the place run.