- published: 02 Jul 2014
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Pennsylvania (i/ˌpɛnsɨlˈveɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a US state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, and the Great Lakes Region. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Ontario, Canada to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
Pennsylvania is the 33rd most extensive, the 6th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of shoreline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
Pennsylvania is 170 miles (274 km) north to south and 283 miles (455 km) east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles (119,282 km2), 44,817 square miles (116,075 km2) are land, 490 square miles (1,269 km2) are inland waters, and 749 square miles (1,940 km2) are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller and smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.
In the United States and Canada, the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) are divided into the western (NHL, NBA) and eastern (NHL, NBA) conferences, with three divisions within each conference. In both leagues, the winners of the three divisions in each conference automatically advance to the playoffs, with the 5 next best teams in each conference also going to the playoffs. In the NHL each of the three division winner is guaranteed one of the top three seeds (or ranks to determine who has home advantage and the matchups for each round of the playoffs, where the top ranked teams play lower ranked teams) in the NBA the top four seeds go to the three division winners and the next best team, based on record. A pending realignment will divide the NHL into four regional conferences instead of two.