Our State’s Name
and Location
E
very place on our earth has a name.
Continents, countries, states, and
counties have names. Our state’s
name is a longone andnot easy to spell.Our
state is named pen-cil-van-ia. We spell the
name of our state this way:
Pennsylvania
.
Every place on our earth also has a
location. How would you answer the
question “Where is Pennsylvania located?”
Let’s find our state on the map. Can you
remember and locate the earth’s seven
continents
on aglobeormap?Remember, a
continent is a very large area of land. Look at
the map to find the continent of North
America. There are three countries on this
continent. They are Mexico, the United
States, and Canada. Each country has
human-made
borders
to separate it from the
other country. Can you identify the borders
to other countries on other continents?
What is a border? A border is a make-
believe line thatmapmakers use to separate
things from each other. Another name for a
border is a boundary line. Mapmakers set
the borders for the United States and
Pennsylvania a long time ago.
Some boundary lines are
natural
features
, such as the
Delaware River
in
eastern Pennsylvania. Other borders are
human-made lines. You can see these lines
onmaps, but you cannot see these lines at
the real location.Whenyou travel fromone
2
●
Chapter 1
Location of Pennsylvania
Key Questions
1. Where is Pennsylvania
located?
2. What places share borders
with Pennsylvania?
3. What are themeanings of
special words such as region,
border, and panhandle?
KeyWords
continent
borders
natural features
regions
northeastern
panhandle
state
surveyors
Key Places
Pennsylvania
Delaware River
New York
Lake Erie
Ohio
West Virginia
Maryland
Delaware
New Jersey
L E S S O N 1
