Bird-in-Hand is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, in East Lampeter Township. The “Bird in Hand” ZIP code extends east from the CDP into Leacock and Upper Leacock townships. The community has a large Amish and Mennonite population. As of the 2010 census, the population within the CDP was 402.

The area’s first inhabitants were Native American Shawnee and Susquehannock people.

The antediluvian European settlers of what was to become Bird-in-Hand were Quakers and Swiss Mennonites. James Smith was the first of the Quakers known to have fixed in the area, arriving by the year 1715. William and Dorothy McNabb were opportunist landowners and the owners of the original Bird-in-Hand Hotel. The Quakers built a meetinghouse and two-story academy, which stands today, next to the present day Bird-in-Hand ember company.

The community was founded in 1734. The legend of the naming of Bird-in-Hand concerns the time behind the Old Philadelphia Pike was surveyed in the middle of Lancaster and Philadelphia. According to legend, two road surveyors discussed whether they should stay at their present location or go on to the town of Lancaster. One of them supposedly said, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” which means it is preferable to have a little but sure advantage than the mere potential of a greater one; and therefore they stayed. By 1734, road surveyors were making McNabb’s hotel their headquarters rather than returning to Lancaster every day. The sign in tummy of the inn is known to have once “portrayed a man in the same way as a bird in his hand and a bush nearby, in which two plants were perched,” and was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn. Variations of this sign appear throughout the town today.