page_title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
section_title: Boroughs merge
hierarchical_section_title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania / History / Boroughs merge
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of the boroughs of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem (merged in 1917 to form the City of Bethlehem). Relief shown by shading and landform drawings. Oriented with north toward the upper left. LC copy imperfect: Darkened, partly water-stained, fold-lined, missing small sections along sheet edges. Includes separate indexes to points-of-interest for Bethlehem and South Bethlehem. Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image.
context_page_description: Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Reading, and Scranton. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County, and 19,343 were in Lehigh County.
  Bethlehem lies in the center of the Lehigh Valley, a region of 731 sq mi that is home to more than 800,000 people. Together with Allentown and Easton, the Valley embraces the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area, including Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties within Pennsylvania, and Warren County in the adjacent state of New Jersey. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley's second most populous city. In turn, this metropolitan area comprises Pennsylvania's third-largest metropolitan area.
  There are four general sections of the city: central Bethlehem, the south side, the east side, and the west side.
context_section_description: After the Civil War the Borough of South Bethlehem was formed. In 1886 the Borough of West Bethlehem (in Lehigh County) was formed. In 1904, the Boroughs of West Bethlehem (in Lehigh County) and Bethlehem (in Northampton County) merged. In 1917, the Borough of South Bethlehem and Bethlehem merged to become the City of Bethlehem, with Archibald Johnston (1865-1948) selected as the new city's first mayor. Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania has remained a separate political entity. Even after the merger of the two boroughs, the bureau initially provided a count for the original sections.
caption: Panoramic map of Bethlehems (1878)
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