U.S. States Codexery

Maine

Northeasternmost state in the contiguous United States.

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Maine

TylerKutschbach · CC BY-SA 4.0

Within the contiguous United States, Maine holds the position of being the farthest northeast state and is part of the New England region.[1] New Hampshire is the sole U.S. state that shares a land border with Maine.[2] Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, reported in a 2012 Bangor Daily News piece, indicated that in 2010, Maine had the highest percentage of rural population in the country, with 61.3% of its residents living in rural settings.[3]

Key facts and history

The Plymouth Company established the first English settlement at the Popham Colony in 1607, but the colonists returned to Britain after 14 months.[4] Formal secession from Massachusetts and admission as the 23rd state occurred on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise.[5] Maine has a humid continental climate with warm summers and long, cold, snowy winters.[6] It is thought that around 1000 CE, Vikings may have been the first Europeans to make contact with the native Penobscot people in what is today Hancock County, likely through trade.[7]

Acadia was the name given by the French to the whole region, which encompassed the area that would eventually become Maine.[4] A royal patent from 1691 for the Province of Massachusetts Bay brought all of what is now Maine together as a single entity called York County, Massachusetts.[8] More than four-fifths of Maine's total land area is covered by forests, a higher proportion than in any other U.S. state.[9]

What the cited sources add

A 2012 Bangor Daily News article reported that Maine beat out Vermont as the most rural state, changing places over the last decade.[3] Maine bucked the national trend by becoming more rural over the last decade.[3] According to that census data, only 1.17 percent of Maine’s 33,215 square miles would be considered “urban,” while 98.83 percent would be considered “rural”.[3] The article also stated that the Portland area, Maine’s biggest urban population, hit 203,914 in 2010, up 15,834.[3]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wickenheiser, "Census: Maine most rural state in 2010 as urban centers grow nationwide", Bangor Daily News, March 26, 2012 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wickenheiser, "Census: Maine most rural state in 2010 as urban centers grow nationwide", Bangor Daily News, March 26, 2012. facts only, no text reused. bangordailynews.com
  4. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: MPBN, "Rolling Back the Frontier" , The Story of Maine; accessed January 3, 2011 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Woodard, Colin. "Parallel 44: Origins of the Mass Effect", The Working Waterfront, August 31, 2010.; Woodard, Colin. The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Forgotten Frontier (2004) Penguin Books.; "Maine History (Statehood)", www.maine.gov (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lent, "New All Time Low Temperature Recorded in Maine", February 10, 2009 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Science: Bye, Columbus", December 11, 1978 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Thorpe, "The Federal and State constitutions, colonial charters, and other organic laws of the state[s], territories, and colonies now or heretofore forming the United States of America /compiled and edited under the Act (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Maine" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Nowak, "Tree and impervious cover in the United States", Landscape and Urban Planning, July 2012, p. 21–30 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Maine (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

More in U.S. States

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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