Sunbury

City and administrative headquarters of Northumberland County, east-central Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River, 80 km/50 mi north of Harrisburg; population (1990) 11,600. It is a shipping centre for the region's coal and agricultural products; it also manufactures textiles, metal products, and construction materials.

It stands on the site of Shamokin, an American Indian village, situated where the Shamokin Creek enters the Susquehanna, just below the latter's junction with its West Branch. Fort Augusta (1756) was established here during the French and Indian War. In July 1883 the US scientist Thomas Edison founded the world's first three-wire central electric lighting station here.