Maryland
Maryland is a
state in the eastern mid-Atlantic region of the
United States. Its U.S. postal abbreviation is
MD. Its
Associated Press abbreviation is
Md.
History
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore applied to
Charles I for a new royal charter for what was to become the
Province of Maryland. George Calvert died in April 1632, but a charter for "Maryland Colony" (in
Latin, "Terra Maria") was granted to his son,
Cćcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, on
June 20, 1632. The new colony was named in honour of
Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I.
The English colony of Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore who on
March 25, 1634 led the first settlers into this area which would soon become one of the few dominantly Catholic regions among the English colonies in America. Maryland was one of the key destinations of tens of thousands of British convicts, which carried on until independence. The
Maryland Toleration Act was one of the first laws that explicitly tolerated varieties of religion (as long as it was
Christian), and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the First Amendment.
Originally, based on an incorrect map, the royal charter granted Maryland the
Potomac River and territory northward to the fortieth parallel. This was found to be a problem, because the northern boundary would put Philadelphia, the major city in
Pennsylvania, within Maryland. The Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the
Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania, engaged two surveyors,
Charles Mason and
Jeremiah Dixon, to survey what became known as the
Mason-Dixon line which would form the boundary between their two colonies.
St. Mary's City was the largest site of the original Maryland colony, and was the seat of state government until just before the beginning of the 18th century (when the government was moved to Annapolis). The government was moved at about the same time as the persecution of Maryland Catholics by Puritans from Virginia; during the persecutions, all of the original Catholic churches of southern Maryland were burned down. St Mary's City is now an archaelogical site, with a small tourist center.
Maryland was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the
American Revolution.
See: Annapolis Convention.
Despite popular support for the cause of the
Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the United States Civil War, in part due to precautions taken by the government in
Washington, D.C.. Because of this it was not included under the
Emancipation Proclamation. A
constitutional convention was held during 1864 that culminated in the passage of a new state constitution on November 1 of that year. Article 24 of that document outlawed the practice of
slavery. The right to vote was not, however, extended to non-white males until 1867.
Law & Government
Main article: Government of Maryland
As in all fifty states, the head of the executive branch of government is a
Governor (''see also List of Maryland Governors'').
The legislative branch, the
Maryland General Assembly, consists of a 47-member
Senate and a 141-member House of Delegates. The legislature meets in the
Maryland state house in the
capital,
Annapolis, in
Anne Arundel County.
The state judiciary is headed by the
Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's supreme court.
Geography
See: List of Maryland counties, List of Maryland rivers
Maryland
Maryland is bounded on the north by
Pennsylvania, on the west by
West Virginia, on the east by
Delaware and the
Atlantic Ocean, and on the south, across the
Potomac River, by
Virginia. It shares a border near the center of the state along the Potomac with Washington, DC.
Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state, and the counties east of the Bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. A portion of extreme western Maryland in
Garrett County is drained by the
Youghiogheny River as part of the watershed of the
Mississippi River. The highest point in Maryland is
Backbone Mountain, which is the southwest corner of Garrett County, right near the border with West Virginia near the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac. Also in Western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state line, is a point at which the state of Maryland is only two miles wide. This geographical curiosity, the " Maryland wasp-waist" is located near the small town of
Hancock.
The
Delmarva Peninsula is a geographic term for the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the state of Delaware, and two counties of Virginia, which all together form a long extension down the Atlantic seaboard. One of the most noted features of Delmarva is Maryland's
Assateague Island, on the Atlantic, with its herd of wild ponies accustomed to the seashore.
Economy
Maryland's economic activity is strongly concentrated in the tertiary
service sector, and this sector, in turn, is strongly influenced by
location. One major service activity is transportation, centered around
the Port of Baltimore and its related rail and trucking access. The port
ranked 10th in the USA by tonnage in 2002 (Source: US Corps of Engineers,
"Waterborn Commerce Statistics"). Although the port handles a wide
variety of products, the most typical imports are raw materials and bulk
commodities, such as iron ore, petroleum, sugar, and fertilizers, often
distributed to the relatively close manufacturing centers of the inland
Midwest via good overland transportation nets.
A second service activity takes advantage of the close location of the
center of government in Washington, D.C. and emphasizes technical and
administrative tasks for the defense/aerospace industry and
bio-research laboratories, as well as staffing of satellite government headquarters in the suburban or exurban Washington area. In addition to these
are many educational and medical research institutions. In fact, the various
components of
Johns Hopkins University and its medical research facilities are now the largest single employer in the Baltimore area. Altogether, white collar technical and administrative workers comprise 25% of Maryland's labor
force, one of the highest state percentages in the country. A list of government
agencies located in Maryland is summarized below:
Maryland has a large food producing sector. One component is commercial fishing, centered in Chesapeake Bay, but also including activity off the
short Atlantic seacoast. The largest catches by species are
blue crab oysters, striped bass, and menhaden. The Bay also has uncounted millions of overwintering waterfowl in its many wildlife refuges. While not, strictly speaking, a commercial food resource, the waterfowl support a tourism sector of sportsmen.
Maryland has a large amount of fertile agricultural land in its coastal and Piedmont zones, although this land use is being encroached upon by urbanization. Agriculture is oriented to dairying for nearby large city milksheads plus specialty perishable horticulture crops, such as cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, muskmelons, squash, and peas (Source:USDA Crop Profiles). In addition, the southern counties of the western shoreline of Chesapeake Bay support a
tobacco cash crop zone, which has been in existence since early Colonial times. There is also a large chicken-farming sector in the state.
The third component of the food producing sector are food processing plants, which are the most significant type of manufacturing by value in the state.
Manufacturing, while large in dollar value, is highly diversified with no sub-sector contributing over 20% of the total. Typical forms of manufacturing include electronics, computer equipment, and chemicals. The once mighty primary metals sub-sector, which at one time included what was then the largest steel factory in the world at Sparrows Point, still exists, but is pressed with foreign competition, bankruptcies, and company mergers.
Mining other than construction materials is virtually limited to coal, located in the mountainous western part of the state. In construction mention should be made of the brownstone quarries in the east, which gave Baltimore and Washington much of their characteristic architecture in the mid-1800's. Historically, there used to be small gold mining operations in Maryland , some surprisingly near Washington, but these no longer exist.
Military facilities
- Aberdeen Proving Ground
- Andrews Air Force Base
- Bethesda Naval Medical Center
- Fort Meade
- Indian Head Naval Surface Weapons Center
- Patuxent River Naval Air Station
- Webster Field
- Ft. Detrick
Transportation
Maryland's major
Interstate Highways include I-95, which enters the northeast portion of the state, goes through
Baltimore, and becomes the
Capital Beltway to the
Woodrow Wilson Bridge. I-68 connects the western portions of the state to Frederick, and I-70 connects Frederick with Baltimore.
Maryland's main airport is
Baltimore-Washington International Airport (formerly known as Friendship Airport). The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. are also serviced by the other two airports in the region, Reagan National and Dulles International Airports, both in Virginia.
Amtrak Trains serve Baltimore along the
Northeast Corridor. MARC trains, operated by the State's Transit Authority, connect nearby
Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and other towns.
Demographics
As of 2003, the state's population was 5,508,909. Most of the people live in the central region of Maryland, in the
Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The Eastern Shore is less populous and more rural, as are the counties of southern Maryland. The three counties of Western Maryland (
Allegany, Garrett, and
Washington) are mountainous and sparsely populated, resembling
West Virginia more than they do the rest of Maryland.
The racial makeup of the state is:
- 62.1% White non-Hispanic
- 27.9% Black
- 4.3% Hispanic
- 4% Asian
- 0.3% American Indian
- 2% Mixed race
The five largest ancestries in Maryland are:
African American (27.9%),
German (15.7%),
Irish (11.7%),
English (9%),
American (5.8%).
Religion
Maryland was founded for the purpose of providing religious toleration of England's Catholic minority. Nevertheless, the Crown later reversed that policy and discouraged the practice of Catholicism in Maryland. Therefore, despite the founding intent of the colony, Catholics have never been in a majority in Maryland since early Colonial times. The present religious composition of the state is shown in the table below:
- Protestant – 58%
- Roman Catholic – 25%
- Other Christian – 2%
- Other Religions – 4%
- Non-Religious – 8%
The three largest Protestant denominations in Maryland are:
Baptist (17% of the total state population), Methodist (14%), Lutheran (6%).
Notwithstanding numerical positions, the founding intent of Maryland has made the state prominent in US Catholic tradition. For example, Baltimore was the location of the first Catholic bishop in the USA ( 1789) and Emmitsburg, the home and burial place of the first American-born citizen to be canonized, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
See Also:Places in Maryland Ranked by Per Capita Income
Important cities and towns
Counties
Famous Marylanders
See List of people from Maryland
Education
Colleges and universities
Professional sports teams
External links
Category:U.S. states
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