The people of Pittsburgh are indeed what make it such a unique place. The city has been shaped by its immigrants, whose specific traditions have left a lasting mark. Pittsburghers are generally welcoming, down-to-earth, and unpretentious. Pittsburgh has also recently gained attention as a burgeoning center for counter-culture.
The British were the first to permanently settle Pittsburgh, and early settlers included the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, as well as German, drawn by mining, shipping, and manufacturing. These people formed the foundation of Pittsburgh, still physically visible in the oldest parts of the city.
By the late 1800s, the demand for labor was so strong the new immigrants - the so-called "millhunks" - began flocking to Pittsburgh, chiefly from Central and Eastern Europe. They not only provided labor, but brought their families, their languages, their churches, and other traditions. Today Pittsburgh's identity has been strongly molded by the ethnic traditions of these immigrants from countries like Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Italy, Lithuania, Serbia, and Croatia. Steeples and the bright copper onion-dome churches of the Eastern Orthodox tradition dot the old parts of town, and grandmas wearing babushkas are a common sight. Pittsburgh is also home to a large Jewish community, centered in Squirrel Hill.
Pittsburgh's modern economy has brought new immigrants from places such as India and China, along with their traditions; the Pittsburgh region today is home to a number of Hindu temples, for example. Pittsburgh has truly been a great melting pot, and continues to be as a home to thousands of students from across the world that attend the many universities in the city, especially Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Pittsburgh
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Pittsburgh - updated Apr 2024
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Pittsburgh Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
