Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) river that joins the Delaware River in Easton and serves as the city's eastern geographic boundary with Phillipsburg, New Jersey.
Easton is the easternmost city in the Lehigh Valley, a region of 731 square miles (1,890 km2) that is Pennsylvania's third-largest and the nation's 68th-largest metropolitan region with 861,889 residents as of the U.S. 2020 census. Of the Valley's three major cities, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, Easton is the smallest with approximately one-fourth the population of Allentown, the Valley's largest city.
The greater Easton area includes the city of Easton, three townships (Forks, Palmer, and Williams), and three boroughs (Glendon, West Easton, and Wilson). Centre Square, the city's town square in its downtown neighborhood, is home to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, a memorial for Easton area veterans killed during the American Civil War. In the first half of the 20th century, Centre Square was referred to locally as the Circle. The Peace Candle, a candle-like structure, is assembled and disassembled every year atop the Civil War monument for the Christmas season.Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, runs through Easton on its way to Bethlehem and Allentown heading west across the Delaware River to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Easton is located 14 miles (23 km) northeast of Allentown, 51 miles (82 km) north of Philadelphia, and 64 miles (103 km) west of New York City.