Chinchilla is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

in Scott and

South Abington South Abington Township is a township in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 9,526 at the 2020 census. The census-designated place of Chinchilla is within the township. South Abington Township is the northern term ...

townships,

Lackawanna County Lackawanna County (; unm, Lèkaohane) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in Northeastern Pennsylvania and had a population of 215,896 as of the 2020 census. Its county seat and largest city is Scranton. The county ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States. The CDP's population was 2,098 at the time of the 2010 United States Census. It was known as "Leach's Flats" until supposedly renamed by a female postmaster in the 1880 after her

chinchilla Chinchillas are either of two species (''Chinchilla chinchilla'' and ''Chinchilla lanigera'') of crepuscular rodents of the parvorder Caviomorpha. They are slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, and are native to the Andes mount ...

-fur shawl. Chinchilla is located in the gorge of

Leggetts Creek Leggetts Creek (also known as Legget Creek, Leggett's Gap Creek, Leggits Creek and originally as Liggett's Creek) is a tributary of the Lackawanna River in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately long and flow ...

, which flows southward into the

Lackawanna River The Lackawanna River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Susquehanna River in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It flows through a region of th ...

on the north side of

Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

Interstate 81 Interstate 81 (I-81) is a north–south (physically northeast–southwest) Interstate Highway in the eastern part of the United States. Its southern terminus is at I-40 in Dandridge, Tennessee; its northern terminus is on Wellesley Island ...

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

/ 11 and the Norfolk Southern Railroad (former Lackawanna Railroad) use the gorge between Scranton and

Clarks Summit Clarks Summit is a borough in Lackawanna County, northwest of Scranton in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 5,108 at the 2020 census. It is also the northern terminus of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension, I-476. History T ...

. Chinchilla has its own post office, with ZIP Code 18410.

Demographics

References

{{authority control Census-designated places in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania Census-designated places in Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania