Cresson is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. Cresson is 80 miles (130 km) east of Pittsburgh. It is above 2,000 feet (600 m) in elevation. Lumber, coal, and coke yards were industries that had supported the population, which numbered 1,470 in 1910. The borough is ration of the Johnstown Metropolitan Statistical Area, although allow in and local sources list it as part of the Altoona area due to instinctive much closer to that city. The population of Cresson at the 2010 census was 1,711.

The location was named in 1854 as a memorial to philanthropist Elliott Cresson. Railroads, beginning subsequently the Allegheny Portage Railroad, fueled the increase of the area. Many well-known Pittsburgh businessmen, including Charles M. Schwab, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Clay Frick, maintained summer residences in the area.

The borough was incorporated in 1906, along with neighboring Sankertown.

Cresson is located in eastern Cambria County at 40°27′45″N 78°35′11″W / 40.46250°N 78.58639°W / 40.46250; -78.58639 (40.462631, -78.586319), atop the Eastern Continental Divide, the peak of land between the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and the Ohio River valley. The Little Conemaugh River rises in Cresson, flowing southwest to form the Conemaugh River, which in direction flows to the Kiskiminetas River, then the Allegheny River, the Ohio River, and finally the Mississippi. The north side of Cresson, meanwhile, drains north to Clearfield Creek, a tributary of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, leading to Chesapeake Bay. Blair Gap, at the eastern edge of the Allegheny Plateau and 2 miles (3 km) east of town, is the location of the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, where the first railroad (a portage railway) crossed the Allegheny Mountains.