{"id":7284,"date":"2023-08-28T21:38:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T21:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/?p=7284"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:35:23","slug":"luzerne-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/luzerne-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Luzerne County, Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luzerne County is a county in Pennsylvania, United States, about 18 miles southwest of
\nScranton in the state’s northeastern corner. It had a population of 325,594 at the 2020
\ncensus, an estimated 332,126 by 2025, and covers 906 square miles (2,350 km2) centred near
\n41\u00b011\u2032N 75\u00b059\u2032W.<\/p>\n

Wilkes-Barre is the county seat and largest city; its postal code is 18701. The county is
\ndivided into 76 independently governing municipalities — 4 cities, 36 boroughs and 36
\ntownships, second only to Allegheny County statewide — and it runs on Eastern Time. Its
\nFIPS code is 42079.<\/p>\n

Towns & Villages in Luzerne County<\/h2>\n

Luzerne County has no townships that contain separate incorporated towns the way some other
\nstates do — every city, borough and township listed here is its own first-class
\nmunicipality with its own local government. All 76 are listed below, ranked by 2020 census
\npopulation. Beyond them, the Census Bureau also recognizes 27 census-designated places (CDPs)
\nthat sit inside these municipalities but have no government of their own; the largest are
\ncovered further down.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Place<\/th>\nType<\/th>\nPop. (2020)<\/th>\nZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Wilkes-Barre<\/td>\nCity · seat<\/td>\n44,328<\/td>\n18701<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hazleton<\/td>\nCity<\/td>\n29,963<\/td>\n18201<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kingston<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n13,349<\/td>\n18704<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hanover Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n11,424<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nanticoke<\/td>\nCity<\/td>\n10,628<\/td>\n18634<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hazle Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n10,150<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Plains Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n9,816<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Butler Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n9,469<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dallas Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n9,099<\/td>\n18612<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pittston<\/td>\nCity<\/td>\n7,591<\/td>\n18640<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kingston Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n7,096<\/td>\n18704<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Plymouth<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n5,763<\/td>\n18651<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wright Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n5,726<\/td>\n18707<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Exeter<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n5,513<\/td>\n18643<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
West Hazleton<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n5,167<\/td>\n18202<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Duryea<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n5,032<\/td>\n18642<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Swoyersville<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n5,008<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Edwardsville<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n4,918<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jackson Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n4,761<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fairview Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n4,691<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
West Pittston<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n4,652<\/td>\n18643<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Newport Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n4,444<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jenkins Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n4,282<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Forty Fort<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n4,239<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Larksville<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n4,225<\/td>\n18651<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Salem Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n4,019<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sugarloaf Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,879<\/td>\n18249<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Freeland<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n3,833<\/td>\n18224<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Rice Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,626<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Foster Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,413<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lehman Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,342<\/td>\n18627<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wilkes-Barre Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,219<\/td>\n18702<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pittston Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n3,179<\/td>\n18640<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wyoming<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n3,102<\/td>\n18644<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Harveys Lake<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,786<\/td>\n18618<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bear Creek Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,752<\/td>\n18602<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ross Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,719<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Luzerne<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,703<\/td>\n18709<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dallas<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,692<\/td>\n18612<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
West Wyoming<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,631<\/td>\n18644<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ashley<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,590<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dupont<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,536<\/td>\n18641<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Avoca<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n2,507<\/td>\n18641<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hunlock Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,215<\/td>\n18621<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dorrance Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,077<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Huntington Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,052<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Exeter Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,047<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Union Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n2,033<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lake Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,994<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Black Creek Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,904<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Conyngham<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n1,825<\/td>\n18219<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Franklin Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,712<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Plymouth Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,710<\/td>\n18651<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nescopeck<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n1,480<\/td>\n18635<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Laflin<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n1,443<\/td>\n18702<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hughestown<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n1,326<\/td>\n18640<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Conyngham Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,309<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fairmount Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,207<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
White Haven<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n1,163<\/td>\n18661<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hollenback Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,125<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nescopeck Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,080<\/td>\n18635<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Slocum Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n1,053<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sugar Notch<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n996<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dennison Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n961<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pringle<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n893<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Courtdale<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n689<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nuangola<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n663<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yatesville<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n638<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shickshinny<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n632<\/td>\n18655<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Laurel Run<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n560<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Warrior Run<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n528<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Buck Township<\/td>\nTownship<\/td>\n378<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Penn Lake Park<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n359<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bear Creek Village<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n290<\/td>\n18602<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New Columbus<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n222<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jeddo<\/td>\nBorough<\/td>\n108<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Two boroughs share a name with a township that is a separate municipality: Dallas Borough and
\nDallas Township are adjoining but distinct governments, and the same is true of Conyngham
\nBorough and Conyngham Township, and of Exeter Borough and Exeter Township. Each pair has its
\nown council and its own population count above — they are not the same place counted
\ntwice.<\/p>\n

Twenty-seven census-designated places sit inside these municipalities without a government of
\ntheir own: Beech Mountain Lakes, Browntown, Chase, East Berwick, Georgetown, Glen Lyon,
\nHarleigh, Hickory Hills, Hilldale, Hudson, Inkerman, Lattimer, Misericordia University,
\nMocanaqua, Mountain Top, Nuremberg, Pardeesville, Pikes Creek, Plains, Shavertown, Sheatown,
\nSilkworth, Trucksville, Upper Exeter, Wanamie, West Nanticoke and Weston. The Census Bureau
\ndoes not publish separate 2020 population counts for most of these under Luzerne County’s
\nsubdivision file, so none are listed here with a number rather than a guessed one. Mountain
\nTop, straddling Wright and Rice townships along Route 309, is the best known — its own ZIP
\ncode, 18707, is shared with Wright Township above. Shavertown and Trucksville, both in Kingston
\nTownship, use ZIP 18708. Glen Lyon, in Newport Township, uses 18617.<\/p>\n

ZIP Codes<\/h2>\n

Luzerne County uses 56 ZIP codes. Wilkes-Barre alone accounts for a dozen, from 18701–18711
\ndowntown and in its surrounding townships to a cluster of 187xx codes (18762–18773) for
\nWilkes-Barre University campuses and large-volume mail customers. Hazleton and West Hazleton
\nshare 18201–18202. Outlying mining patches and rural communities in the county’s
\nsouthern half — Beaver Meadows, Drifton, Drums, Ebervale, Harleigh, Lattimer Mines,
\nMilnesville, Rock Glen, Saint Johns, Sugarloaf, Sybertsville and Weston — each carry their
\nown 182xx code even though most have no local government. The Back Mountain and Harveys Lake
\narea north of Wilkes-Barre runs on a separate 186xx series (Dallas 18612, Harveys Lake 18618,
\nLehman 18627), and the Susquehanna River towns southwest of Wilkes-Barre use 18634 (Nanticoke),
\n18635 (Nescopeck) and 18651 (Plymouth\/Larksville). Places without a listed ZIP of their own,
\nincluding most of the smaller townships in the table above, receive mail under a neighboring
\ntown’s code.<\/p>\n

Geography<\/h2>\n

Luzerne County sits in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, a flat basin along the Susquehanna
\nRiver flanked by ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, including Buck Mountain, Nescopeck
\nMountain and Red Rock Mountain. Of its 906 square miles, 890 are land and 16 — about 1.8
\npercent — are water. The Susquehanna River is the county’s largest waterway, draining
\nmost of the county along with the Lackawanna River, Nescopeck Creek and Solomon Creek; the
\nLehigh River forms part of the southeastern county line. Harveys Lake, the county’s
\nlargest natural lake, sits in the Back Mountain area northwest of Wilkes-Barre. The
\ncounty’s highest point is Cherry Ridge in Fairmount Township at 2,460 feet (750 meters);
\nthe lowest, about 512 feet (156 meters), lies near Shickshinny on the Susquehanna.<\/p>\n

Wyoming County borders Luzerne to the north, Lackawanna County to the northeast, Monroe
\nCounty to the east, Carbon County to the southeast, Schuylkill County to the south, Columbia
\nCounty to the west and Sullivan County to the northwest. Wyoming County<\/a>, Lackawanna County<\/a>, Monroe County<\/a>, Carbon County<\/a>, Schuylkill County<\/a>, Columbia County<\/a> and Sullivan County<\/a> all
\nborder Luzerne directly.<\/p>\n

Demographics<\/h2>\n

Luzerne County had a population of 325,594 at the 2020 census, and the latest Census Bureau
\nestimate puts it near 332,126 residents by 2025. Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton are the two largest
\ncommunities. Median household income runs $63,691 (2024 estimate), well below Pennsylvania’s
\nstatewide 2023 ACS figure of $73,824. Population density works out to about 370 people per
\nsquare mile of land. The county has the largest plurality of residents reporting Polish
\nancestry of any county in the United States, alongside large Italian, Irish and German
\ncommunities tracing back to the anthracite immigration era; 14.4 percent of residents identify
\nas Hispanic or Latino as of the 2020 census.<\/p>\n

Economy & Local Life<\/h2>\n

Health care and social assistance is the county’s largest employment sector at about
\n25,875 workers, followed by retail trade at 19,613 and manufacturing at 18,512. Geisinger
\nHealth System is a major regional health care employer. Warehousing and logistics have grown
\ninto a defining industry since the 2000s, driven by the county’s position at the
\ninterchange of Interstate 80 and Interstate 81 — the CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park
\nand Humboldt Industrial Park host large fulfillment centers for Amazon and Chewy. The
\nSusquehanna Steam Electric Station, a nuclear plant near Berwick on the Luzerne–Columbia
\ncounty line, is a major utility employer. Luzerne County’s GDP is $20.58 billion, the
\nlargest in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the county ranks 11th among Pennsylvania’s 67
\ncounties for tourism spending, part of a group of counties generating over $1 billion in
\nannual visitor spending.<\/p>\n

History<\/h2>\n

The Pennsylvania General Assembly created Luzerne County on September 25, 1786, from part of
\nNorthumberland County, ending a decade of armed conflict between Connecticut and Pennsylvania
\nsettlers known as the Pennamite–Yankee Wars. The county was named for Chevalier de la
\nLuzerne, a French diplomat to the American revolutionary government. Wilkes-Barre became the
\ncounty seat. On July 3, 1778, during the Revolutionary War, Loyalist and Seneca forces defeated
\na Patriot militia at the Battle of Wyoming, killing 302 American defenders; a monument in
\nWyoming Borough marks the site today.<\/p>\n

Anthracite coal drove the county’s 19th-century growth after Philip Ginder found hard
\ncoal near Summit Hill in 1791. Hazleton and Pittston were incorporated as cities in 1891 and
\n1894 as mining brought waves of European immigrants. The industry also brought disaster: the
\nAvondale Mine Disaster killed 110 workers on September 6, 1869, the Twin Shaft Disaster killed
\n58 miners in Pittston City on June 28, 1896, and the Lattimer Massacre of September 10, 1897
\n— in which a sheriff’s posse fired on unarmed striking miners — killed roughly
\nnineteen people. Mining accidents continued into the 20th century, including a June 1919
\nexplosion that killed 92 miners at the Baltimore Colliery in Wilkes-Barre. On January 22, 1959,
\nthe Susquehanna River broke through worked-out mine tunnels near Pittston in the Knox Mine
\nDisaster, flooding the Wyoming Valley’s deep anthracite mines and effectively ending large-scale
\nunderground mining in the county.<\/p>\n

More recently, Luzerne County government was the subject of a corruption scandal from 2008 to
\n2010 in which three county judges and several officials faced criminal charges, including the
\n“kids for cash” case in which juvenile judges were convicted of taking payments tied
\nto sentencing decisions. Voters responded by adopting a home rule charter on November 2, 2010,
\nreplacing the board of county commissioners with an elected county council and a professional
\ncounty manager starting in 2012.<\/p>\n

Getting There<\/h2>\n

Interstate 81 runs north–south through the county past Wilkes-Barre, and Interstate 80
\ncrosses the southern half near Hazleton; Interstate 476, the Northeast Extension of the
\nPennsylvania Turnpike, also passes through. US Route 11 and Pennsylvania Route 309, the North
\nCross Valley Expressway, are the main state routes through Wilkes-Barre and Kingston.<\/p>\n