NEW ENGLAND STATES

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont

New England is a region of the United States located in the northeastern corner of the country, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and New York State

The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, swamps, and sandy beaches. Further inland are the Appalachian Mountains, extending through Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Among them, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is Mount Washington, which at 1,917 m (6,288 ft), is the highest peak in the northeast United States. The longest river is the Connecticut River.

WEATHER patterns are highly variable and climate varies throughout the region. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have a humid continental short summer climate, with cooler summers and long, cold winters. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, have a humid continental long summer climate, with hot summers and cold winters. Fall in New England brings bright and colorful foliage, which comes earlier than in other regions, attracting tourism.

SYMBOLS

On June 8, 1998, the New England Governors approved a motion to adopt the flag of New England as the official New England emblem. "The roots of this representative flag of New England can be traced all the way back to 15th century England. The blue field and red St. George's cross in the design come from the Royal British Navy's peacetime design, which was first carried ashore to New England soil in 1621. The six white stars, of course, represent the six New England states. And the addition of the green pine tree, a Colonial symbol of New England, made this flag New England's own."

STATE TREE is a pine tree. The history of the Pine Tree as a symbol of New England probably predates the European colonial settlements. In eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire and the southern corner of Maine, there once lived a nomadic tribe of Amerindians known as the Penacook. "Penacook" meaning "Children of the Pine Tree." The Penacook people have been teaching the Pilgrims. The forests surrounding the settlement were teeming with game and wild foods unfamiliar to the Pilgrims and it was the Penacooks who showed them these new things. According to some accounts, the Penacooks also taught the Pilgrims elementary democracy, which the Penacooks, in turn, had learned from the Five Nations (later six) of the Iroquois Confederacy. The emblem of the Iroquois from the begining of their history to the present day is the "Tree of the Great Peace," a White Pine Tree with an Eagle perched on the top of it.

HISTORY

• New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian-speaking Native Americans including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, and the Wampanoag. New England was sparsely populated and densely forested, leading European settlers to believe North America was a "virgin land."

• On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued two charters, one each for the Virginia Companies, of London and Plymouth, respectively. The Virginia Company of Plymouth's charter included land extending as far as present-day northern Maine. Captain John Smith, exploring the shores of the region in 1614, named the region "New England" in his account of two voyages there, published as A Description of New England.

• The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620. Shortly afterwards, in December 1620, a permanent settlement was established near present-day Plymouth by the Pilgrims.

• The Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would come to dominate the area, was established in 1628 with its major city of Boston established in 1630.

• Providence, Rhode Island was founded in 1636.

• On March 3 of the same year, the Connecticut Colony was granted a charter, and established its own government.

• In 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The UNITED COLONIES of NEW EnNGLAND").

• In the 18th century, New England became a hotbed of revolutionary agitation for independence from Great Britain, and its patriots played leading roles in establishing the new nation of the United States of America. In the early decades of the republic, the region strongly supported a national tariff and the policies of the Federalist Party. 1773, the BOSTON TEA PARTY was an act of direct action protest by the American colonists against the British Government in which they destroyed many crates of tea belonging to the British East India Company and dumped it into the Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on December 16, 1773, was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution and remains an iconic event of American history.

• After the War for Independence New England remained distinct. Politically, it often went against the grain of the rest of the country. It was, as a whole, the most urbanized part of the country (the 1860 Census showed that 32 of the 100 largest cities in the country were in New England), as well as the most educated.

• New England was also an early center of the industrial revolution. Pawtucket Rhode Island is considered the birthplace of America's industrial revolution.

POPULATION

• Three-quarters of the population of New England and most of the major cities are in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The most populous state is Massachusetts, and the most populous city is Massachusetts' political and cultural capital, Boston.

• The only New England state without access to the Atlantic Ocean, Vermont, is also the least populated.

• New England's coast is dotted with urban centers, such as Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, New Bedford, Fall River, Newport, Providence, New Haven, Bridgeport, and so on.

• Southern New England forms an integral part of the BOS WASH megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The region includes three of the four most densely populated states in the United States; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

ECONOMY

• Several factors contribute to the uniquenesses of the New England economy. The region is geographically isolated from the rest of the United States, and is relatively small. It has a climate and a supply of natural resources such as granite, lobster, and codfish.

• About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as computers and electronic and electrical equipment. This, when combined with instruments, chemicals, and transportation equipment, makes up about three-quarters of the region's exports. Granite is quarried at Barre, Vermont, guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts, boats at Groton, Connecticut and Bath, Maine, and hand tools at Turners Falls, Massachusetts.

• The service industry is also highly important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, plus architectural, building, and construction services. The U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire United States economy.

• With its rocky soil and climate, New England is not a strong agricultural region. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for aquaculture, Vermont fifteenth for dairy products, and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively. Cranberries are grown in the Cape Cod - Plymouth area, and blueberries in Maine.

• New England is home to two of the ten poorest cities (by percentage living below the poverty line) in the United States: the state capital cities of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut.

• MAINE is known for its lobster. Northern Maine is known for its potato crops, second only to Idaho in US production.

• VERMONT is known for its cheddar cheese and other dairy products. It is best known outside of New England for its maple syrup, which is generally considered to be of the highest quality available in America. Maple syrup is used as an ingredient in many Vermont dishes, including baked beans.

• Coastal MASSACHUSETTS is known for its clams, haddock, and cranberries, and previously cod. Apples are grown in the Commonwealth's interior. Boston is known for, among other things, baked beans, bulkie rolls, and various pastries. Hot roast beef sandwiches served with a sweet barbecue sauce and usually on an onion roll is popular in Boston's surrounding area. The North Shore area is locally known for its roast beef establishments.

• Southern NEW HAMPSHIRE cuisine is similar to that of the Boston area, featuring fish, shellfish and local apples. As with Maine and Vermont, French-Canadian dishes are popular, including tourtière (meat pie), which is traditionally served on Christmas Eve.

• RHODE ISLAND is known for Rhode Island clam chowder (clear chowder), quahog (hard clams), coffee milk, hot dogs, grinders (submarine sandwich), pizza strips, and Del's frozen lemonade.

• CONNECTICUT is known for its pizza (particularly the white clam pie), the hamburger sandwich. Italian-inspired cuisine is dominant in the New Haven area, while Southeastern Connecticut relies heavily on the fishing industry.

LAWS

• New England abolished the death penalty for crimes like robbery and burglary in the 19th century, before much of the rest of the United States did. New Hampshire and Connecticut are the only New England states that allow capital punishment

• Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions between same sex couples, and Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex marriage. In 2008, some form of same-sex unions will be in all New England states except Rhode Island, though the state does recognize Massachusetts marriages for its residents

EDUCATION

• New England is home to four of the eight Ivy League universities.

• New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States.

The first such institution, subsequently named HARVARD College, was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train preachers, in 1636.

- YALE University was founded in Branford, Connecticut, in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in 1861. Yale moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1718 where it has remained to the present day.

- BROWN University, the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations and seventh-oldest institution of higher learning, was founded in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1764.

- DARTMOUTH College was founded five years later in Hanover, New Hampshire, with the mission of educating the local American Indian population as well as English youth.

• In addition to four out of eight Ivy League schools, New England also contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Little Three, four of the original seven sisters, the bulk of institutions identified as the Little Ivies, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts.

• New England states fund their public schools well, with expenditures per student, and teacher salaries above the national median. BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL is the oldest public high school in America. Several signers of the Declaration of Independence attended Boston Latin.

CULTURE

• Bars and pubs, especially those with Irish themes, are popular social venues. In much of rural New England, particularly Maine culture are included in the region's music and dance. Contra dancing and country square dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by live Irish, Acadian, or other folk music.

• In some towns of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, Portuguese music is preserved by Portuguese American communities. A number of Portuguese American musicians live in the Boston area.

• Traditional knitting, quilting and rug hooking circles in rural New England have become less common; church, sports, and town government are more typical social activities. In fact, New England leads the country in ice cream consumption per capita.

• Also in New England a lot of famous writers and poets were born such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Noah Webster, Robert P. T. Coffin, Elizabeth Bishop and many others.

SPORTS

• Two popular American sports were invented in New England. Basketball was invented by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. Volleyball was invented by William G. Morgan in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895. The major professional sports teams in New England are based in the Boston area: the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, the Boston Celtics.

• There is a number of traditional sport events, such as Thanksgiving day high school football rivalries date back to the 19th century, and the Harvard-Yale rivalry ("The Game") is the oldest active rivalry in college football. The Boston Marathon, run on Patriot's Day every year, is a New England cultural institution and the oldest annual marathon in the world.