Delaware County Formed in 1789 From Chester County
Land
Find the words "DELAWARE COUNTY" in the map on the right.
Pause your cursor on them to get a suggestion.

Find the small red dot in the map marking Penn's landing spot. Pause your cursor on it.

Zoom views with early landowners names can be found.
Pause your cursor on the colored towns for an instructional message to appear.
When Delaware County was separated from Chester County in 1789, there were 21 towns. They are numbered in the map below. Seven have not changed. Three are first class townships - Haverford, Radnor, and Tinicum. Four are second class townships - Concord, Edgmont, Middletown, and Thornbury.

Birmingham ( a second class township) was named Chadds Ford. Subsequently It was designated as a first class township. Chester Heights borough (in red) split off from the first class township of Aston. Marple (a first class township) and Newtown (a second class township) actually combined. Below are the other changes:

Pause your cursor on any area of the Delaware County map on the right, to see names and dates of origin of towns and some of their divisions.
  1. Lower Darby (green area) was divided into 9 new boroughs. They are Alden, Collingdale, Colwyn, Darby, Folcroft, Glenolden, Primos, Sharon Hill, and Yeadon. A first class township named Darby was created too.
  2. Upper Darby (rose area) became 5 new boroughs and a township. The boroughs are Millbourne, Lansdowne, East Lansdowne, Clifton Heights and Secane. The remaining Upper Darby area became a first class township.
  3. Ridley (tan area) became 5 new boroughs and a township. The boroughs are Ridley Park, Eddystone, Rutledge, Prospect Park, and Norwood. The remaining Ridley area became a first class township.
  4. Providence (yellow area) had different splits. Nether Providence became a first class township and split off Rose Valley as a borough. Upper Providence became a second class township and split off Media as a borough.
  5. Chester (light blue area) was called Upland when William Penn arrived. In 1866 part of it became a third class city. The area also became 3 boroughs (Brookhaven, Parkside, Upland) and a second class township named Chester.
  6. Chichester (lavender area) was comprised of two first class townships named Upper Chichester and Lower Chichester, a second class township named Bethel, and two boroughs named Trainer and Marcus Hook.
How the arc-shaped boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania came to be.
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Springfield (the royal blue area in the above map split off two boroughs - Morton (pink) and Swarthmore (grey). Notice a very tiny part of Springfield is on the lower side of Swarthmore.
When first 21 Delaware County towns were originated.

These 21 became 50. NOTE: Middletown was spelled wrong in this listing.
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