Every year, the majority of large cities and even medium-sized towns put aside some money and give residents a firework display either on or near the 4th of July. As a child, I always wondered whether what I was seeing was better or worse than the surrounding towns, but because I wanted to spend the time with my friends and family, I never bothered venturing out.
Luckily, the world is now more interconnected than ever. Millions of people attend fireworks displays in places all over the United States, and some of them are kind enough to upload their photographs onto picture housing services and share them.
What follows is a single picture from the fireworks displays in several of the biggest cities in the United States. Some of them are colorful. Some of them are chaotic, but every single one feels like patriotism.
In Pittsburgh their fireworks happened in the midst of a lightning storm, resulting in stunning photos like this one...
Here’s a great angle of the New York City fireworks, as taken from New Jersey. The skyline looks incredible in the background…
Here’s the celebration in Portland, Oregon, as taken from the Ross Bridge. The various colors reflecting off the water are stunning…
Here’s a wonderful view of the Chicago skyline and the fireworks going off far above Navy Pier. Last night, more people actually showed up than the city could accommodate…
This one is from Seattle, and it does an awesome job of illustrating both the chaos and all of the people who turned up for a show. Plus, I’m always a sucker for the gold fireworks…
In the spirit of keeping Austin, Texas weird, here’s a picture taken from a kayak on Lake Austin during the festivities…
Here’s a shot of the fireworks in Boston, Massachusetts, as seen from Cambridge. The city itself looks so far away…
This is the night sky in Philadelphia during the firework extravaganza last night. There’s a pretty sweet meshing of colors going on…
I don’t know exactly what’s going on in the following picture taken in Los Angeles, but that is a beautiful shade of purple against the gold splotches in front. It almost looks like an abstract, modern art painting, which, contrary to what you might think is a compliment…
Here’s a beautiful photograph of the vastly underrated and surprisingly quaint Denver, Colorado, as seen from Elitch Gardens. I love how quiet everything looks from this angle…
This is a great shot of the fireworks towering over the buildings in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. They almost seem to overwhelm everything in their path.
If the architecture in this picture isn't cool enough, the view of San Francisco's dueling fireworks shows certainly will be. I wish more cities would do the call and response thing. It's such a visual overload on the eyes...
Here's the view from a roof in downtown Houston, TX...
This shot taken in San Diego really makes going to the fireworks seem like a fun group activity...
Nothing like a white firework against a black sky. This is from New Orleans...
I have no idea if this firework is technically the property of Minneapolis or St. Paul, but I can tell you it's very pleasant and probably handles the cold well...
Since there's no place like Disney World, here's the view of the Orlando fireworks from the Polynesian Resort...
