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MARYLAND FACTS & LINKS
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The State Fair is held in late August in Timonium
Maryland is in the Eastern Time Zone
The Motto means "manly deeds, womanly words"
Maryland was the 7th state to enter the Union.
Maryland has been called "America in Miniature" because so much is packed into its 10,460 square miles of land and water. You can find just about any kind of natural feature here, except a desert. That's because water is almost everywhere in Maryland.
Population:
2000
- 5,296,486 persons, the 19th most populous state
Population
Density:
2000 - 541.9 persons per square mile, the 5th most
densely populated state
History:
Maryland is also called
the "Old Line State" and "Free State". The Old
Line nickname was given during the Revolutionary War, when 400
soldiers in the First Maryland Regiment fought a British force of
10,000 and helped General George Washington's army to escape.
Washington depended on the Maryland Line throughout the war, and the
soldiers' discipline and bravery earned Maryland its nickname.
The
name "Free State" was given in 1919, when Congress passed a
law prohibiting the sale and use of alcohol. Marylanders opposed
prohibition because they believed it violated their state's rights.
The "Free State" nickname also represents Maryland's long
tradition of political freedom and religious tolerance.
The first to be in this
area were Paleo-Indians who came more than 10,000 years ago from
other parts of North America to hunt mammoth, great bison and
caribou. By 1,000 B.C., Maryland had more than 8,000 Native Americans
in about 40 different tribes. Most of them spoke Algonquian
languages. They grew corn, peas, squash and tobacco. They also
hunted, fished and traded with tribes as far away as New York and
Ohio.
The name, Chesapeake Bay, came from the Native American
word "Chesepiuk," an Algonquian name for a village that the
Roanoke, Virginia colonists discovered in 1585 near the mouth of the
Bay. Later, mapmakers used the word to name the Bay. People have said
that Chesapeake means "great salt water" or "great
shellfish bay," but no records exist to verify those
definitions.
The Italian explorer,
Giovanni da Verrazano, was the first European to visit the Chesapeake
area in the late 1500’s. Later came English settlers, who left
England for more economic opportunities and to escape religious
oppression. In 1608, Captain John Smith thought there was "no
place more perfect for man's habitation" than the Chesapeake
Bay. Fur trader William Claiborne thought so, too, and set up a fur
trading post on Kent Island in 1631. This was the first English
settlement in the upper Chesapeake.
Maryland began as a
colony when King Charles I promised George Calvert, the first Lord
Baltimore, a colony north of Virginia. Before he could visit the
colony, George Calvert died. His son, Cecilius, became the second
Lord Baltimore and the Lord Proprietor of Maryland. He named his
colony "Terra Maria," or "Maryland" in honor of
the king's wife Queen Henrietta Mary. Because Cecilius Calvert had to
remain in England, he sent his younger brother Leonard to accompany
the colonists and to be the first governor.
Maryland was one of the original 13 colonies in America. It was the 7th state to ratify the new US Constitution. It achieved statehood on 28 April 1788.
Geography:
Longitude: 75° 4'W
to 79° 33'W
Latitude: 37° 53'N to 39° 43'N
Size:
250 miles
long
90 miles wide
Total land area: 9,838 square
miles
Total water area: 2,633 square miles
Total area: 12,407
square miles, the 42nd largest state
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest body of water in Maryland. Maryland also has nearly 50 rivers and creeks, plus streams, lakes, ponds and the Atlantic Ocean. The major source of the Chesapeake Bay is the Susquehanna River. Maryland has almost 4,000 miles of shoreline, more than any other state. All 400 lakes in Maryland are manmade
Of the 2,500 total square miles of the Chesapeake Bay, 1,726 are in Maryland. This Bay is 185 miles long, 30 miles wide at its widest, 174 feet deep at its deepest and holds 18 trillion gallons of water
Maryland has 31 miles of
Atlantic Ocean coastline.
The elevation range in
Maryland is: 0-3,360 feet above sea level
average elevation: 350
feet above sea level
Highest point: 3,360
feet above sea level, at Backbone Mountain in Garrett
County
Lowest point: Sea Level, at the Atlantic Ocean
Distances to other major
cities:
37 miles – Washington, D.C.
96 miles –
Philadelphia, PA
196 miles – New York City, NY
392 miles
– Boston, MA
Geographic Center: 4.5 miles NW of Davidsonville in Prince Georges County, at Longitude: 77° 22.3'W Latitude: 39° 29.5'N
Borders:
To the south
is the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia and to the north is Pennsylvania.
Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean are on the east and on the west are
both Virginia and West Virginia
Weather & Climate:
Average winter
temperature: 33 degrees F.
Average summer temperature: 75 degrees
F.
Yearly average
snowfall:
mountain areas: 78 inches
coastal plain: 9
inches
Yearly average rainfall: 40.46 inches
Record high: 109.0 at
Cumberland on 10 July 1936
Record low: -40 degrees, F. at Oakland
on 13 January 1912
Fun Facts about Maryland:
The Maryland State House
is the oldest building in the U.S. still in legislative use.
The
first woman in the new world to demand the right to vote was Mistress
Margaret Brent, St. Mary's City, 1648.
The first telegraph
message, "what hath God wrought," was sent from Baltimore
to Washington, D.C. on May 24, 1844.
The first African American
scientist, Benjamin Banneker, was a Marylander who in 1791 became the
first African American employee of the federal government.
In
1923, Maryland's Attorney General ruled it illegal to permit a
trained bear to operate an automobile on the public highways of the
state.
In 1831, the B&O Railroad set a speed record at an
incredible 30 miles per hour!
The ouija board, patented in 1892,
was invented by Isaac and William Fuld of Baltimore.
On June 10,
1892, Wilbert Robinson of the Orioles his 7 for 7, a record never
matched in a nine inning major league game. The final score: Orioles
25, St. Louis 4.
The country's first bookmobile, the idea of Miss
Mary Titcomb of the Washington County Free Library, began operating
in 1907.
LINKS
Maryland
Chamber of Commerce
60 West Street #100
Annapolis, MD
21401
Phone: 410-269-0642
Government
Links page for Maryland
Great links page for all levels of
government in Maryland
Maryland
State Department of Education
Maryland
Office of Tourism Development
Maryland
State Archives (history and government):
Maryland
Department of Natural Resources (boating and fishing):
Maryland
Department of the Environment
Maryland
Department of Agriculture
Vital Records for Maryland
Find the weather for anyplace in the USA
This page was created 9 November 1998
This page was last updated on 16 September 2006 at 10:10 pm
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