Northern Tier (Pennsylvania)

The Northern Tier is a geographic region consisting of five, or sometimes seven, rural counties in north-central Pennsylvania.

The region is bordered to the north by the Southern Tier of New York state. Together, these regions are known as the Twin Tiers.

The counties and important towns in the Northern Tier are:

The region is bounded to the north by the Southern Tier of New York, the west by the Northwest Region, and the east by Northeastern Pennsylvania.

McKean and Potter Counties have populations, economies and geographic features that are very similar to those of the five Northern Tier counties, but the residents of McKean and Potter counties usually refer to their region not as the Northern Tier but as "Northern Pennsylvania".

The counties and important towns in the Northern Pennsylvania subregion are:

It is not unusual for people in the two Northern Pennsylvania counties to be at least as connected to communities in Western New York as they are with communities in Pennsylvania. Olean, New York and Jamestown, New York offer more shopping, dining and entertainment options than any of the towns of McKean or Potter Counties. Most of the television that could be received there before the mid 1990s, when satellite TV became common and cable TV expanded into some rural areas, came from Buffalo, New York. The only stations that can reliably be received with a rooftop antenna are WIVB (CBS), WGRZ (NBC) and WKBW (ABC). CHCH from Hamilton, Ontario and CFTO from Toronto can also sometimes be received with poor image quality. Newscasts from the Buffalo stations made it easier for Northern Pennsylvanians to follow local events in Western New York (and to some degree, in southern Ontario) than to follow events in their own state. The only way to view a Pennsylvania station without cable or satellite service is to point an antenna in the opposite direction of the Buffalo stations, which brings in WPSU (PBS) from Clearfield. People in Northern Pennsylvania are as familiar with Buffalo's professional sports teams as with those of Pittsburgh, which is roughly twice as far as Buffalo.

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