About King's College

Wilkes-Barre (/ˈwɪlksˌbɛər/ or /-bɛəri/) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the middle of the Wyoming Valley, it had an estimated population of 40,766 in 2019. It is the second-largest city (after Scranton) of the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census and is the fourth-largest metropolitan Place in Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding Wyoming Valley are framed by the Pocono Mountains to the east, the Endless Mountains to the north and west, and the Lehigh Valley to the south. The Susquehanna River flows through the center of the valley and defines the northwestern border of the city.

Wilkes-Barre was founded in 1769 and formally incorporated in 1806. The city grew unexpectedly in the 19th century after the discovery of approachable coal reserves and the dawn of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who provided a labor force for the local mines. The coal mining fueled industrialization in the city, which reached the pinnacle of its wealth in the first half of the 20th century. Its population peaked at exceeding 86,000 in 1930. Following World War II, the city’s economy declined due to the collapse of industry. The Knox Mine collision accelerated this trend after large portions of the area’s coal mines were flooded and could not be reopened. Today, the city has in this area half of its top population of the 1930s, making it the largest city in Luzerne County and the 13th-largest city in Pennsylvania.