Historic Moravian Bethlehem

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, began as a planned religious community. Moravian missionaries from central Europe founded it in 1741 along the Lehigh River and named it on Christmas Eve of that year, when their patron, Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, led a service in the settlement's first house. Members lived communally in 'choirs' organized by age, sex and marital status, sharing work and worship, and they built large stone houses for each group that still line the town's historic core.

The Moravians were skilled craftsmen and engineers. Their 1762 waterworks pumped water uphill to the settlement and is considered the first municipal pumped water system in the American colonies. The 1741 Gemeinhaus, the oldest building in Bethlehem, still stands, as do the Single Brethren's and Single Sisters' houses and God's Acre, the cemetery where members were buried side by side regardless of rank. In 2024 Historic Moravian Bethlehem joined Moravian settlements in Germany, Denmark and Northern Ireland as a shared UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• Pennsylvania
  The Keystone State, ridge-and-valley heart of Appalachia located in