The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as comprising five Pennsylvania counties, Carbon County, Lackawanna County, Luzerne County, Northumberland County, and Schuylkill County. It is home to 910,716 people as of the 2010 census. The Coal Region is bordered by Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton Counties (including the Lehigh Valley) to its south; Columbia and Dauphin Counties to its west; Wyoming County to its north; and Warren County, New Jersey to its east. History The population of the Amerindian tribesmen of the Susquehannock nation was reduced 90 percent in three years of a plague of diseases and possibly war, opening up the Susquehanna Valley and all of Pennsylvania to settlement as the tribe was all but eliminated. Settlement in the region predates the American Revolution. Both Delaware and Susquehannock power had been broken by disease and wars between Native American tribes before the British took over the Dutch and Swedish colonies and settled Pennsylvania. The first discovery of anthracite coal in the region occurred in 1762, and the first mine was established in 1775 near Pittston. In 1791, anthracite was discovered by a hunter atop Pisgah Ridge, and by 1792 the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company began producing and shipping coal to Philadelphia via Mauch Chunk from the Southern Anthracite Field and Summit Hill, built atop the line between Schuylkill County and what would be renamed Carbon County. By 1818, customers fed up with the inconsistent mismanagement leased the Lehigh Coal Mining Company and founded the Lehigh Navigation Company: construction soon began for navigation; the locks and dams on the Lehigh River rapids stretches, later known as the Lehigh Canal (finished in 1820). In 1822, the two companies merged as the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), and by 1824 the company was shipping large volumes of coal down the Lehigh and Delaware Canals. Meanwhile, three brothers had similar ideas from near the turn of the century, and about the same time began mining coal in Carbondale, northeast of Scranton, but high enough to run a gravity railroad to the Delaware River and feed New York City via the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Pennsylvania began the Delaware Canal to connect the Lehigh Canal to Philadelphia and environs, while