Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located 23 miles northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey, on the Delaware River. Bristol was settled in 1681 and first incorporated in 1720. After 1834, it became very important to the development of the American Industrial Revolution as the terminus city of the Delaware Canal, providing greater Philadelphia with the day's high quality anthracite coal from the Lehigh Canal via Easton.