Living in The Pennsylvania Wilds

The Pennsylvania Wilds -- the official 13-county Pennsylvania Wilds Conservation Landscape designation, covering roughly a quarter of the state's land area but only about 4% of its population -- is this state's most rural and most forested region, home to more than 2 million acres of public land (comparable in scale to Yellowstone National Park), some of the darkest night skies in the eastern United States, and the northeastern U.S.'s largest elk herd. State College, home to Penn State University's main campus and more than 42,000 undergraduates, is this region's clear outlier and its only true college town, running a housing market several times higher than its Wilds neighbors. The rest of the region -- Williamsport (the actual birthplace of Little League Baseball, founded 1939, and host of the Little League World Series since 1947), Bradford (headquarters of Zippo lighters since 1932 and Case knives), Warren (an Allegheny National Forest gateway), Clarion, and Punxsutawney (the real hometown of Groundhog Day) -- offers some of the most affordable housing anywhere in this dataset. This region has no major airport of its own; movers should plan on driving to State College, Erie, Pittsburgh, or Harrisburg for fuller air service.

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Last reviewed: 2026-09-05. Independent research; see individual place pages for metric-level source attribution. This is not financial, tax, or legal advice -- confirm current figures with a local professional before making a decision.