New Hampshire

New Hampshire sits in New England, in the northeastern part of the United States. It shares borders with Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Among the 50 states, it ranks as the seventh smallest in land area and the tenth least populated, with about 1.38 million people counted in the 2020 census. The capital is Concord, while Manchester is its largest city. The state’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” points to its involvement in the American Revolution, and its nickname, “The Granite State,” comes from its many granite formations and quarries. New Hampshire is also famous for hosting the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle, giving it notable sway over national politics.

For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, Algonquian-speaking peoples like the Abenaki lived in the area. English settlers founded some of the earliest non-native communities in the 1600s. The Province of New Hampshire was created in 1629, named after the English county of Hampshire. During the French and Indian War, the region sat on the edge of British territory and saw conflict with French forces and their Indigenous allies. In the 1760s, tensions between the colonies and Britain grew, and New Hampshire staged an early rebellion in 1774 by seizing Fort William and Mary from the British. In 1776, it became the first British North American colony to set up its own independent government and state constitution. It signed the Declaration of Independence and supplied troops, ships, and materials for the war against Britain. In 1788, it became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, putting it into effect. During the mid-1800s, New Hampshire was a stronghold for abolitionism, and it sent nearly 32,000 Union soldiers to fight in the Civil War. Afterward, the state industrialized quickly, with its population growing as it became a hub for textiles, shoes, and paper. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester was the largest cotton textile plant in the world at the time. French Canadians made up the biggest wave of immigrants, and today about a quarter of New Hampshire residents trace their ancestry to France.

Like much of the country, New Hampshire’s manufacturing sector shrank after World War II. Since 1950, the economy has shifted toward financial services, real estate, education, transportation, and high-tech, though manufacturing still employs more people than the U.S. average. The population surged as highways linked the state to Greater Boston, turning many towns into commuter suburbs. New Hampshire is one of the wealthiest and most educated states, tying with Massachusetts for the highest Human Development Index in the nation. It is one of nine states with no income tax and also lacks taxes on sales, capital gains, or inheritance, instead relying heavily on local property taxes to fund schools. This keeps the overall state tax burden among the lowest in the country, a philosophy often called the “New Hampshire Advantage,” a term coined by former governor Stephen Merrill. Since 2017, the state’s Republican Party has held a trifecta in state government, except for 2019 and 2020, while Democrats have generally held the majority of federal congressional seats.

The state’s mountainous, forested landscape supports a growing tourism industry centered on outdoor recreation. It has some of the highest ski mountains on the East Coast and is a popular destination for winter sports. Mount Monadnock is one of the most climbed mountains in the world. Other attractions include fall foliage viewing, summer cottages on lakes and the seacoast, motorsports at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, and Motorcycle Week, a rally held at Weirs Beach in Laconia. The White Mountain National Forest contains much of the Appalachian Trail between Vermont and Maine, and it features the Mount Washington Auto Road, which lets visitors drive to the summit of 6,288-foot Mount Washington.

The area was originally home to various Algonquian-speaking Abenaki tribes, mainly the Androscoggin, Cowasuck, and Pennacook. Though they shared a language family, their culture and religion were quite different from other Algonquian peoples. Archaeological digs in 2009 found evidence that Indigenous people lived near Keene, New Hampshire, as far back as 12,000 years ago, and the Abenaki were present in pre-colonial times.

English and French explorers arrived between 1600 and 1605, and David Thompson established a settlement at Odiorne’s Point in present-day Rye in 1623. The first permanent European settlement was at Hilton’s Point, now Dover. By 1631, the Upper Plantation covered modern-day Dover, Durham, and Stratham, and in 1679 it became the “Royal Province.” Southern New Hampshire saw heavy fighting during King William’s War, with Dover and Durham burned in 1689 and 1692, respectively. Father Rale’s War was another conflict between colonists and the Wabanaki Confederacy across the state.

New Hampshire was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. During that war, the state was economically split. The Seacoast region depended on sawmills, shipyards, merchant warehouses, and established town centers, where wealthy merchants built large homes, filled them with luxuries, and invested in trade and land speculation.