Philadelphia County 43
43 places to explore in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania — part of the Philadelphia & The Countryside region.
Public Gardens 7
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Rodin Museum
Rodin's Thinker greets visitors at the gate and The Gates of Hell frame the entrance to this Beaux-Arts museum and garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
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Awbury Arboretum
A Quaker family's former estate in Germantown, now an open landscape of old trees, meadows and ponds.
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Bartram's Garden
The oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, begun by John Bartram in 1728 on the banks of the Schuylkill River.
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Calder Gardens
Opened in 2025 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a contemplative setting for Alexander Calder's sculptures, with a building by Herzog & de Meuron and gardens by Piet Oudolf.
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Morris Arboretum and Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania's arboretum in Chestnut Hill, with a walk through the tree canopy, a Victorian fernery and a garden railway.
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Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center
A Japanese house and garden in 17th-century style, built in Japan for display at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s, now set beside a koi pond in Fairmount Park.
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Wyck Historic House, Garden, and Farm
Lived in by one Quaker family for nearly three centuries, a Germantown house with an old-rose garden laid out in the 1820s and a small working farm.
Museums 27
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Independence National Historical Park
The birthplace of American independence: Independence Hall, where the Declaration and the Constitution were adopted, the Liberty Bell, Congress Hall and blocks of historic buildings.
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Betsy Ross House
The small colonial house associated with Betsy Ross, the upholsterer said to have sewn the first Stars and Stripes, with period rooms and a costumed interpreter.
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Rodin Museum
Rodin's Thinker greets visitors at the gate and The Gates of Hell frame the entrance to this Beaux-Arts museum and garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
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Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
America's oldest natural science research institution, founded in 1812, with dinosaur skeletons, dioramas and a live butterfly room.
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African American Museum in Philadelphia
Opened for the 1976 Bicentennial, this pioneering museum explores African American history and culture, including the lives of the city's free Black community in the nation's first century.
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Barnes Foundation
Albert Barnes's extraordinary collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse and more, hung as he arranged it.
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Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion
A towering 1859 stone mansion in Germantown furnished in high Victorian style, with restored period gardens and exhibits on mid-19th-century domestic life.
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Franklin Institute
Philadelphia's landmark science museum, home of the giant walk-through heart and the Fels Planetarium.
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Independence Seaport Museum
Philadelphia's maritime museum on Penn's Landing, with the cruiser Olympia and the World War II submarine Becuna to explore.
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Museum of the American Revolution
The story of the Revolution told through objects such as George Washington's own field tent, a short walk from Independence Hall.
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Mütter Museum
The College of Physicians' famous museum of medical history, with anatomical specimens, antique instruments and curiosities.
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National Constitution Center
A museum devoted to the U.S. Constitution on Independence Mall, with a stirring theater show and a hall of life-size bronze statues of the signers.
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National Liberty Museum
Glass art and stories of heroes celebrate freedom in this museum, crowned by Dale Chihuly's towering red 'Flame of Liberty' sculpture.
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Penn Museum
The University of Pennsylvania's archaeology and anthropology museum, with a colossal Egyptian sphinx and treasures from the royal tombs of Ur.
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Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Founded in 1805 as America's first art museum and school, showing American paintings and sculpture in Frank Furness's flamboyant 1876 building.
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Philadelphia Museum of Art
Climb the famous Rocky Steps to a vast temple of art, with masterpieces from Van Gogh's Sunflowers to Duchamp, a medieval cloister and a Japanese teahouse inside.
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Philadelphia's Magic Gardens
Isaiah Zagar's mosaic labyrinth of tiles, mirrors, bottles and found objects, covering a block on South Street.
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Please Touch Museum
A children's museum built for play, inside Memorial Hall from the 1876 Centennial Exposition, with hands-on exhibits, a Wonderland maze and a restored antique carousel.
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Print Center
Founded in 1915, this gallery champions contemporary prints and photography, with changing exhibitions and a long-running international competition.
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Rosenbach Museum & Library
Two townhouses filled with rare books and manuscripts, including James Joyce's handwritten Ulysses and Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula.
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Wagner Free Institute of Science
Fossils, minerals and mounted animals in original cherry cases fill this Victorian natural history museum, preserved almost unchanged inside its 1865 hall.
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Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History
Jewish life in America from the 1650s to the present, told through artifacts and personal stories at a Smithsonian affiliate on Independence Mall.
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Woodmere Art Museum
Art by the city's own painters, sculptors and craftspeople, shown in a Victorian stone mansion on the edge of the Wissahickon in Chestnut Hill.
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Athenaeum of Philadelphia
A members' library founded in 1814, in an 1845 Italianate building on Washington Square, with rich collections on architecture and decorative arts and public exhibitions.
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Eastern State Penitentiary
A vast 1829 prison, its cellblocks left in haunting ruin, where Al Capone once served time; now a museum about American justice.
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Simeone Automotive Museum
Historic racing sports cars, from prewar Alfa Romeos to the original Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, shown in period settings, with demonstration days when some are driven out back.
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Wyck Historic House, Garden, and Farm
Lived in by one Quaker family for nearly three centuries, a Germantown house with an old-rose garden laid out in the 1820s and a small working farm.
Historic Sites 12
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Independence National Historical Park
The birthplace of American independence: Independence Hall, where the Declaration and the Constitution were adopted, the Liberty Bell, Congress Hall and blocks of historic buildings.
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Betsy Ross House
The small colonial house associated with Betsy Ross, the upholsterer said to have sewn the first Stars and Stripes, with period rooms and a costumed interpreter.
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Fairmount Water Works
Classical temples on the Schuylkill below the art museum that once pumped the city's water, now an interpretive center about the river and its watershed, beside Boathouse Row.
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Cliveden
Benjamin Chew's Germantown country house, held by British troops against Washington's attack in the Battle of Germantown in 1777, now a house museum of the National Trust.
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Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion
A towering 1859 stone mansion in Germantown furnished in high Victorian style, with restored period gardens and exhibits on mid-19th-century domestic life.
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Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site
The brick house where Edgar Allan Poe lived in the early 1840s, the only one of his city homes to survive, including a cellar that recalls his story The Black Cat.
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Elfreth's Alley
Often called the nation's oldest continuously inhabited residential street, a narrow cobbled lane of 18th-century brick rowhouses, with a small museum house open to visitors.
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Fort Mifflin
On the Delaware River marshes, a stone fort whose 1777 siege held up the British fleet, with barracks, casemates and stories of later service as a Civil War prison.
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Laurel Hill Cemetery
A Victorian garden cemetery founded in 1836 on bluffs above the Schuylkill, with elaborate monuments, fine sculpture and river views, explored on guided tours and events.
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Eastern State Penitentiary
A vast 1829 prison, its cellblocks left in haunting ruin, where Al Capone once served time; now a museum about American justice.
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Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center
A Japanese house and garden in 17th-century style, built in Japan for display at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s, now set beside a koi pond in Fairmount Park.
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Wyck Historic House, Garden, and Farm
Lived in by one Quaker family for nearly three centuries, a Germantown house with an old-rose garden laid out in the 1820s and a small working farm.
Public Parks 3
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Benjamin Rush State Park
A sprawling community garden, a radio-control flying field and trails through meadows and woods fill the only state park inside city limits.
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John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum
The largest freshwater tidal marsh left in Pennsylvania, just beyond the airport runways, with boardwalks, a visitor center and trails where herons, egrets and migrating songbirds are easy to spot.
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Wissahickon Valley Park
A deep, wooded gorge cut by Wissahickon Creek, with car-free Forbidden Drive along the water, the 1850s Valley Green Inn, a covered bridge and rugged trails up schist cliffs.
Hiking Trails 2
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Wissahickon Valley Park
A deep, wooded gorge cut by Wissahickon Creek, with car-free Forbidden Drive along the water, the 1850s Valley Green Inn, a covered bridge and rugged trails up schist cliffs.
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Schuylkill River Trail
Beginning in Center City, a long riverside trail runs past Boathouse Row and Manayunk to Valley Forge and beyond, paved through the city and busy with cyclists, runners and walkers.
Biking Trails 1
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Schuylkill River Trail
Beginning in Center City, a long riverside trail runs past Boathouse Row and Manayunk to Valley Forge and beyond, paved through the city and busy with cyclists, runners and walkers.
Zoos & Aquariums 1
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Philadelphia Zoo
America's first zoo, opened in 1874, with big cats, primates and Zoo360 trails that let animals roam over visitors' heads.
