Karen Hill

Back in the early 1800s, lead miners in Wisconsin often lived in hillside caves they had dug, which people compared to the way badgers dig holes. These miners were called Badgers, and the name was eventually applied to all Wisconsin residents. In 1882 the first plant in the United States to produce electricity by using … Read more

Wisconsin, is the leading milk producer in the United States. Its 1.6 million dairy cows produce a year’s supply of milk for 42 million people. Wisconsin also leads the states in butter and cheese production, supplying about a fourth of the nation’s butter and a third of its cheese. In 2009 Wisconsin had about 5.6 … Read more

The Finger Lakes, in west-central New York, got their name because their long, narrow shapes look like fingers of a hand. There are 11 lakes in the group, although some people disagree on that number. The largest is Lake Seneca, at 37 miles (60 km) long and 3 miles (5 km) wide at its widest … Read more

The people called Pennsylvania Dutch are not Dutch at all, but rather descendants of the many German immigrants who settled in the central part of the state beginning in the 1700s. The German word for German is Deutsch, which was mispronounced as “Dutch.” Today, many Pennsylvania Dutch people still live in the central part of … Read more

In architecture, the keystone is the wedge shaped stone that is placed in an arch to hold the other stones in place. In 1802, at a state rally celebrating the presidential victory of Thomas Jefferson, someone made a toast to Pennsylvania that called it “the keystone in the federal union,” a reference to the state’s … Read more

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, New Jersey farmers played a large role in providing food to the people of nearby New York City, which may be the reason for the state’s nickname. Today, although nearly 9 out of 10 people in New Jersey live in cities, the state still has many truck farms, … Read more

About 18,000 of the Old Order Amish (pronounced Ab-mish) people in the United States live in and around Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Amish religion is an offshoot of the Mennonite faith. People of both these denominations came to America in the early 1700s, with many settling in Pennsylvania, to escape religious persecution in Europe. The Amish … Read more

A few interesting geographic names have come from combining Delaware’s name with those of its neighbors. The strip of land that extends between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean contains all of Delaware and parts of Maryland and Virginia. The popular name for the entire area is the Delmarva Peninsula, formed from DELaware, MARyland, … Read more

Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, which it did on December 7, 1787. That’s why Delaware is represented first in presidential inaugurations and other national events. Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia share the Delmarva Peninsula. If you look at a map, you’ll notice that Delaware’s northern boundary with Pennsylvania is formed by … Read more

The state of Maryland was named for Queen Henrietta Maria, who was the wife of King Charles I of England. In 1632 King Charles granted the land that was to become Maryland to Cecilius Calvert, and he and his descendants ran the colony for many years. Calvert, a Roman Catholic, wanted to establish a colony … Read more

People from Sweden and Finland settled near present-day Wilmington, Delaware in 1638, calling their colony New Sweden. These settlers built log cabins much like those they had in Scandinavia. Later that century, the Dutch and then the English took over the colony. Since local forests offered a plentiful supply of logs for building, the log … Read more

Its central location has kept Baltimore, Maryland, an active port city on the Chesapeake Bay for more than 300 years. Baltimore is closer to the American Midwest than any other East Coast port, and it is just an overnight drive for a third of the U.S. population. Oceangoing ships can reach the port of Baltimore … Read more

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, and lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Native Americans who once lived along the bay gave it an Algonquian name, Chesepiook, meaning “great shellfish bay.” It is the seventh oldest surviving English place-name in the U.S., and was explored … Read more

The Chesapeake Bay, bordered by Maryland and Virginia, is the largest estuary in the United States. An estuary is an arm of a sea that extends inland to meet the mouth of a river. The Chesapeake Bay contains mostly salt water, since it is part of the Atlantic Ocean. But freshwater from many rivers and … Read more

Seven U.S. presidents were born in Ohio, more than any other state except Virginia. They were Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. Although he was born in Indiana, William Henry Harrison was living in Ohio when he became president. Ohio’s nickname, … Read more

Traditional fishing is being supplemented by the practice of aquaculture in Maryland. Aquaculture is the practice in which growers use ponds or special tanks to raise millions of pounds of trout, striped bass, catfish, and tilapia, and lesser amounts of oysters and soft crabs each year. Overfishing and pollution have resulted in smaller fish and … Read more

In the years after the Erie Canal opened in 1825, the canals were enlarged twice and finally mostly abandoned in the early 1900s, when the New York State Barge Canal was opened in 1918 to accommodate the larger barges of the day. This new waterway was created by dredging out and damming the rivers the … Read more

Once the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, it connected New York City via the Hudson River with Buffalo, New York, which is on Lake Erie. From there, barges and boats could reach areas of the upper Midwest by way of the Great Lakes. In those days, roads were hardly more than rough trails, and … Read more

Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester do receive much more snow than most U.S. cities, only Juneau, Alaska, and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, have averaged more snow than Buffalo over the past half century. The reason is upstate New York’s proximity to the Great Lakes, whose huge expanses of open water provide ample moisture for snow and … Read more

There are very few tall buildings in between Lower Manhattan and Midtown because of the geology of Manhattan Island. Very tall buildings need a very solid foundation, and Manhattan Island’s bedrock of schist, which is a granite-like rock, is particularly solid and stable. In lower Manhattan the schist is about 80 feet (24 m) below … Read more

The latest theory on how New York was called the Big Apple is that horse-racing trainers and jockeys in the 1920s used the term to refer to New York City. Back then New York had racetracks which offered winners large purses, in other words, a big treat, or a “big apple.” The nickname was first … Read more

The five boroughs in New York City are also counties. The names of the five boroughs are: Bronx (Bronx County) Brooklyn (Kings County) Manhattan (New York County) Queens (Queens County) Staten Island (Richmond County) Queens is the largest borough in area, with 108 square miles (281 sq km), while Brooklyn (Kings County) is the largest … Read more

Henry Hudson, an Englishman, was hired by the Dutch to find a shortcut to the Pacific Ocean back in the early 1600s. When he sailed up the river now named after him, he was able to claim the land around it, today’s states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and part of Connecticut, for the … Read more

Cape Cod is a 65-mile (105-km) long peninsula of Massachusetts that is a popular East Coast summer vacation area. It’s easy to find on maps because of the distinctive hook at its far end. It was originally named Pallavisino by the first European to spot it, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, in 1524. In … Read more

The Indian name for Lake Webster in Massachusetts is Lake Chaubunagungamaug. And that’s the short form. The long form is Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaug. Translated, it means “You fish your side of the lake. I fish my side. Nobody fishes the middle.” About half the cranberries grown in the United States come from southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and … Read more

Vermont was the first state to enter the Union after the original 13 states. It was an independent republic until 1791, when it joined the Union. The original 13 states were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The original 13 colonies … Read more

Massachusetts and three other states, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, are called commonwealths, but they are also states of the United States. There is no legal difference between the terms “commonwealth” and “state,” and they are used interchangeably. The only true U.S. commonwealth, meaning a self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily associated with the United States, is … Read more

Rhode Island was the first of the 13 American colonies to declare its independence from Great Britain. It did so on May 4, 1776, exactly 2 months to the day before the other 12 colonies. Rhode Island was the only one of the 13 colonies that did not attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in … Read more

In 1639, the colony of Connecticut established its Fundamental Orders, which set up a government based on the will of the people. Some historians say that this document was the first ever written constitution of a democratic government and may have served as a model for the U.S. Constitution. Also, during the writing of the … Read more

Rhode Island does not have the smallest population of all the states. Rhode Island ranks 43rd among the 50 states in population, with a little more than 1 million people. States with fewer people, in order after Rhode Island, are Montana, South Dakota, Delaware, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming. Small as it is, Rhode … Read more

The smallest U.S. state has the longest official name: “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Providence Plantations refers to the towns on the mainland. The island of Rhode Island, now more commonly called Aquidneck, is the largest of thirty six islands, most of which are in Narragansett Bay, that also make up the state. The city … Read more

The Empire State Building in New York City is not the tallest building in the United States. The Sears Tower, in Chicago, Illinois, is the tallest, at 1,450 feet (442 m), with 110 floors. At the time of its completion in 1974, the Sears Tower was the tallest building in the world, and it held … Read more

Connecticut is often called the Insurance State because it is the headquarters for more than 100 insurance companies. In the 1790s companies there began insuring ships and cargo that left its ports. These companies prospered, and by 1810 people could buy insurance that would cover them for “loss of life or personal injury while journeying … Read more

A person from Connecticut is called a “Connecticuter,” says Webster’s New International Dictionary, although there is no official state term to describe a person who was born in or lives in Connecticut. In the 1700s two other words were seen in print: “Connecticotian” and “Connecticutensian.” At one time, “Nutmegger” was used to refer to a … Read more

New York is called the Empire State not because of the Empire State Building, the state had its nickname long before 1931, when that famous skyscraper was built. No one knows for sure how New York got the nickname, but some historians think the name can be traced to George Washington, who once said the … Read more

New York was the capital of the United States between 1785 and 1790. George Washington was sworn in as the first president there in 1789. In 1790 Congress agreed, as part of a compromise between northern and southern leaders, to locate a permanent capital along the banks of the Potomac River. In the meantime, the … Read more

California leads the list of states that use the most water, using almost 11 percent of the freshwater in the United States. Most of this water is used to irrigate crops. Next are Texas, Illinois, and Idaho, which together use about 28 percent. Water is necessary for most life on Earth. Humans can survive for … Read more

Most of the water in the United States is put to industrial uses, including power generation. Almost as much water, about 40 percent, is used for irrigation, particularly in states like California, Texas, and Nebraska. Only 12 percent of water is used by households and businesses. In many parts of the world, some people have … Read more

Less than 1 percent of the electricity in the United States comes from harnessing power from natural steam sources below the Earth’s surface. The United States led the world in geothermal electricity production in 2010 with 3,086 MW of installed capacity from 77 power plants. Geothermal power requires no fuel, and is therefore immune to … Read more

Each person in the United States uses from 80 to 200 gallons (303 to 757 liters) of water a day. Most of that is used to flush toilets. About 70% of the freshwater in the world is consumed by agriculture. Water is used as a solvent in manufacturing and plays an important role in the … Read more

Wind turbines that are used to generate electricity come in many shapes and sizes. The largest turbine, in Hawaii, is 20 stories high and has propellers with a span longer than a football field. It can produce enough electricity to power 1,400 homes. Smaller machines have blades between 8 and 25 feet (2.4 and 7.6 … Read more

A small peninsula near the town of Lubec, Maine, called West Quoddy Head, lies the farthest east of the conterminous 48 U.S. states. West Quoddy Head overlooks Quoddy Narrows, a strait between Canada and the United States, and is the closest point to Africa from a point in the fifty States. But the U.S. Virgin … Read more

No one knows for sure why people from New England called Yankees. Some think “Yankee” may have been derived from Janke, the Dutch nickname for Jan, meaning “John” in English. Janke was considered to be an insulting name during the 1600s. By the mid-1700s, the British were using the word to refer to New Englanders … Read more

New England consists of six states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Captain John Smith named the region New England while exploring the northeastern coast in 1614. In 1686 the English government formed a province they also called New England that consisted of the colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts (which then included … Read more

Some people who work in Massachusetts like to live across the border in New Hampshire because New Hampshire does not have a general sales tax or a state income tax on individual earned income. The state does levy other kinds of taxes, but even so, it has the third lowest overall taxes of all the … Read more

Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, is the highest peak in New England, at 6,288 feet (1,917 m). It is part of the Presidential Range, which has mountains named for Presidents Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison. New Hampshire’s mountain areas include five monadnocks, which are mountains or hills that sit alone on a flat plain because … Read more

Maine was a part of Massachusetts for almost 200 years. In 1820 it broke away and became the twenty third state. For much of its early history, in the 1600s and 1700s, Maine was claimed by both the French and the British. The British finally took it at the end of the French and Indian … Read more

All six New England states lie along the Atlantic coastline except Vermont. However, Vermont’s west and east borders are mainly water, Lake Champlain forms a good part of its western border with New York, and the Connecticut River forms Vermont’s entire eastern border with New Hampshire. Vermont is the most rural of all the states. … Read more

New Hampshire, like several other New England states, contains large deposits of granite, a very hard and durable igneous rock used as building material. It was once a major supplier of granite to other states, and several granite quarries continue to operate there. New Hampshire has just 13 miles (21 km) of coastline on the … Read more

The first federal highway had several names: the National Road, the Cumberland Road, and the National Pike. It was begun in 1811 in Cumberland, Maryland, and by 1841 it ran almost 800 miles, to Vandalia, Illinois. This road was important because it provided a route over the Allegheny Mountains and linked the Potomac and Ohio … Read more

The green or white signs with numbers that are placed along interstate highways are mile markers. They give travelers a way to determine where they are along a route. The mile marker shows the number of miles from where the interstate route entered the state you are in. For north–south highways, the numbering begins at … Read more

Atlanta, Georgia, has the busiest airport in the United States, no matter how you measure it, either by number of passengers getting on or off a plane, or by the number of takeoffs and landings. Passengers who are just passing through don’t count Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport comes in second, followed by the Los Angeles … Read more

Cumberland Road does not pass through the Cumberland Gap. The Cumberland Gap is near the place where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee meet. It’s a natural cut in the Cumberland Mountains that was formed millions of years ago by water cutting through the Cumberland Plateau. In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Trail, which runs through … Read more

The United States has lots of fish farms, in fact, every state in the nation has at least a few fish farms. Salmon is raised in the waters off Maine and Alaska. Arkansas and Mississippi, in particular, have many large catfish farms. Idaho’s trout farms produce 80 percent of the world’s farm raised trout. Louisiana, … Read more

California leads the country in agricultural production, followed in order by Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. North Dakota produces the most wheat, followed by Kansas. Iowa produces the most corn, followed by Illinois and Nebraska. Texas produces the most cotton, followed by California and Mississippi. Texas produces the most cattle, followed by Kansas and Nebraska. … Read more

Wind power is used to generate electricity mostly in the western part of the United States. The federal government has set a goal to use wind power to produce at least 5 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2020. Large-scale wind farms are operating in California, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Oregon, and several … Read more

Wyoming, West Virginia, and Kentucky produce most of the coal in the United States. Natural gas comes mainly from Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Oklahoma as well as from federal offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico. There are huge reserves of natural gas in Arkansas and Oklahoma. More than half of U.S. electricity is … Read more

Gold is still mined in the United States, in fact, the United States is a major source of gold, second in the world after South Africa. Most gold comes from mines in Alaska and a few other western states such as the state of Nevada which has open-pit heap leach mines. Most U.S. gold comes … Read more

Places that have an average annual wind speed of at least 13 miles (21 km) per hour are best for producing wind energy. These can be found along the East Coast, the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, and a few other locations in the United States. North Dakota is a prime location … Read more

Statistically speaking, it is safer to drive on interstate highways than on other kinds of roads in the United States. The fatality rate on interstates is 50 percent lower, and the injury rate is 70 percent lower. Interstates were designed with safety in mind. There are no intersections and no railroad crossings, curves are engineered … Read more

From the west, the Central Pacific Railroad began building track in Sacramento, California. From the east, the Union Pacific began construction in Omaha, Nebraska. Railroads running from the East Coast to Omaha had already been built. It took about six years of backbreaking labor until the two tracks met at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869. … Read more

The longest bridge in the United States is also the longest over-water bridge in the world: the 24-mile (38-km) long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway near New Orleans, Louisiana. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York City is the longest suspension bridge in the United States, with a span of 4,260 feet (1,298 m). Close behind is … Read more

You can tell whether an interstate highway runs north–south or east–west by its one or two digit number. Odd-numbered interstates run north–south, and the numbers increase as you travel from the West Coast (I-5) to the East coast (1-95). Even-numbered interstates run east–west, and the numbers increase as you go from south (I-10) to north … Read more

In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the need for the United States to have sufficient evacuation routes for both military vehicles and private citizens in the event of a war with the Soviet Union. He had seen the German autobahn system during World War II and pushed Congress to pass legislation that would … Read more

Alaska has the most coastline, but Michigan, not Florida or California, as you might think, comes in second, because of its 3,288 mile (5,290-km) shoreline along the Great Lakes. More than half of the people in the United States live within 50 miles (80 km) of a coastline. Alaska is the largest state in the … Read more

Most metropolitan areas in the United States that have been losing people are in the North or East. The areas shrinking fastest in the 1990s were Utica-Rome, New York; Binghamton, New York; Steubenville-Weirton, Ohio-West Virginia; and Grand Forks, North Dakota-Minnesota. A metropolitan area is also sometimes known as a commuter belt or a labor market … Read more

Urban sprawl refers to the spread of suburban housing developments that extend far beyond the city where most people work. When an urban area spreads, traffic problems increase and the city’s downtown area begins to decay, as shops and restaurants move to the suburbs. The Sierra Club says that Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix … Read more

An edge city is a booming suburban area that has sprung up since the 1970s, usually near a major highway. It contains many large office buildings and shopping centers but not very many homes and apartments. An example of an edge city is Tysons Corner, Virginia, next to the Capital Beltway (I-495) a few miles … Read more

A town is often defined as having between 2,500 and 20,000 residents, but there are no strict guidelines. Historically, in Europe, a city was understood to be an urban settlement with a cathedral. The word “town” comes from the Old Norse word “tun” which means “a grassy place between farmhouses”. The most common name for … Read more

The word Megalopolis originally referred to the largely urban East Coast area that spreads from Boston to Washington, D.C. But now it means any multicity urban area of more that 10 million people. The term Megalopolis was used by Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book, The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first … Read more

Utah tops the list, with a third of the total population under age 18, followed by Alaska and New Mexico. West Virginia has the fewest, where only one of every five people is under age 18. About 70 percent of the people who live in Utah are Mormons, who tend to have large families.

If you want to avoid earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, and volcanoes, don’t live in California, according to geographer Mark Mercer. Other risky places to live include Seattle, Washington, with its nearby active volcanoes and vulnerability to earthquakes. Coastal areas of Hawaii and Alaska are unsafe because of possible tsunamis. The southern United States can be dangerous … Read more

In 1998, about 16 percent of the U.S. population, forty three million people, changed addresses. Most moved within their own county, but 15 percent packed up and moved to another state. The average American changes residence 11 to 13 times over a lifetime. Various studies have found that moving house is often particularly stressful for … Read more

The most common surnames in the United States in order, are Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, and Brown. A surname is a name added to a given name and in many cases, a surname is a family name. In Western countries, a surname is also known as a “last name”, but in many countries in Asia, … Read more

In Alaska, 9 of 10 high school students graduate and get their diplomas. The lowest percentage of high school graduates is in South Carolina, where only three of four students finish high school. The 10 states with the lowest rankings in high school completion were southern states or states that bordered on southern states. The … Read more

By far, the Roman Catholic Church, which has 62 million members in the United States, is the largest church group in the United States. Next in line are the Southern Baptist Convention, with 15.7 million; the United Methodist Church, with 8.4 million; the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., with 8.2 million; the Church of God … Read more

If you guessed that Main Street is the most common street name in the United States, you’d be wrong. It’s Second Street, mainly because many former Main Streets and First Streets were later given other names. In second place is Park Street, followed by Third, Fourth, and Fifth Streets. The most popular street name with … Read more

More than twice as many people will be living in the United States a hundred years from now, says the Census Bureau. Experts predict that the nation will have 338 million people by 2025, 404 million people by 2050, and 571 million by 2100. They expect this increase even though the U.S. birthrate is stable, … Read more

The 10 largest U.S. states in population as of the 2000 Census were: California 33,871,648 Texas 20,851,820 New York 18,976,457 Florida 15,982,378 Illinois 12,419,293 Pennsylvania 12,281,054 Ohio 11,353,140 Michigan 9,938,444 New Jersey 8,414,350 Georgia 8,186,453 U.S. Census Bureau experts predict that by 2025, Florida will become the third largest state, bumping New York to the fourth spot. More than twice as many people live in … Read more

Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean Sea southeast of Florida, is a United States territory, with about 3.8 million people. Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory, along with the Pacific island of Guam, when the Treaty of Paris was signed after the Spanish-American War in 1898. Puerto Rico became a commonwealth in 1952, meaning … Read more

The western states are growing in population much faster than the United States as a whole. Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona each grew by more than 30 percent during the 1990s, while the total U.S. growth rate was 13 percent. Nevada grew by more than 66 percent, the fastest growing state of all. Other fast … Read more

African Americans make up the largest minority group in the United States, but Hispanics are not far behind. In 2000, African Americans made up 12.8 percent of the U.S. population, while Hispanics represented 12.5 percent, Asians and Pacific Islanders about 4.1 percent; and Native Americans 0.9 percent. By 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau predicts, Hispanics … Read more

The U.S. Virgin Islands, not to be confused with the British Virgin Islands, are a territory of the United States. They lie about 40 miles (64 km) east of Puerto Rico. The U.S. government purchased this group of 50 islands and cays from Denmark in 1917. The reason? During World War I, the U.S. government … Read more

About 26 million of the 273 million people living in the United States in 1999 were born somewhere else. Half were born in Latin America, including Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. A fourth were born in Asia, including the Philippines, China, Vietnam, and India. A fifth were born in Europe. Half of … Read more

Almost a million people immigrate to the United States yearly, although the Census Bureau predicts that the number will drop to about 700,000 a year by 2011. The main reason people come to the United States is for better-paying jobs. For example, one study showed that people who were earning only about $31 a week … Read more

More than 30 million Americans are non-native speakers of English. Spanish speaking people lead the list, followed by native speakers of French, German, Italian, Chinese, Tagalog, Polish, Korean, and Vietnamese. English is the de facto national language of the United States, although there is no official language. In 2007, about 80% of the population aged … Read more

Americans have been a people on the move since the nation’s beginnings. But as European settlers moved in, Native Americans lost out. The population of Native Americans was between 5 million and 10 million when English colonists first landed in the 1600s, but by 1900 fewer than 250,000 Native Americans were left. Many died from … Read more

Nearly 50 million people visit the United States from other countries every year. Most of them are tourists or businesspeople, and most come from Canada and Europe. Interestingly, in recent years more Europeans visited the United States than the number of Americans who visited Europe. As of 2008, the most visited tourist attraction in the … Read more

All of the fastest growing cities in the United States in the 1990s were in the West or the South. Number one is Las Vegas, which added nearly half a million residents to its population between 1990 and 1998. Following Las Vegas, the fastest growing cities in the United States were: Las Vegas, Nevada Laredo, … Read more

A metropolitan area is much larger than the area within the official city limits. A metropolitan area includes the central core city as well as the nearby communities that are tied to that city in terms of business and social activities. The U.S. Census Bureau defines these metropolitan areas. In land area, Juneau, Alaska, is … Read more