THE LEHIGH COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Northern Shale Valleys setting.
Lehigh County has 345.3 square miles of land in Pennsylvania. 6 mapped landscape regions meet across Lehigh County: Northern Shale Valleys, Northern Limestone/Dolomite Valleys, Reading Prong, among others.
Long, roughly parallel ridges and valleys follow folded and faulted rock layers. Limestone valleys, sandstone ridges and other geologic contrasts produce varied terrain and numerous regional springs and caves.
Regional context: Ridge and Valley ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Lehigh County intersects 6 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Northern Shale Valleys43.2%
- Northern Limestone/Dolomite Valleys34%
- Reading Prong16.2%
- Northern Sandstone Ridges4.3%
- Triassic Lowlands1.8%
Northeastern Highlands in Lehigh County
Forested hills and mountains span northern New England, the Adirondacks and higher Catskills. Glacial lakes and steep streams accompany a transition between northern hardwood and spruce-fir forests.
Read the regional source ↗Northern Piedmont in Lehigh County
Rounded low hills, open valleys and irregular plains form a transition between Appalachian highlands and the coastal plain. The underlying geology mixes metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rocks.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Lehigh County
The atlas lists 41 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Lehigh County, including Lynn, North Whitehall, Weisenberg. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Lehigh County by land and water
The Census records 2.88 square miles of water within Lehigh County, or 0.8% of its total area. That share is close to Lehigh County’s 0.8%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Lehigh County has 20.2 times the land area of nearby South Whitehall township (17.1 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Berks County, Bucks County, Carbon County, Montgomery County, Northampton County, Schuylkill County within Pennsylvania. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

