Theme Week New England – Connecticut

22 February 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Hartford - Connecticut State Capitol © flickr.com - jglazer75/cc-by-2.0

Hartford – Connecticut State Capitol © flickr.com – jglazer75/cc-by-2.0

Connecticut is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. The state is named for the Connecticut River, a major U.S. river that approximately bisects the state. The word “Connecticut” is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for “long tidal river”. The capital is Hartford. Other big cities are Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, Meriden, Bristol, West Haven, Milford and Middletown. Connecticut is the third smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the 50 United States. It is known as the “Constitution State“, the “Nutmeg State”, the “Provisions State”, and the “Land of Steady Habits”. It was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States. Much of southern and western Connecticut (along with the majority of the state’s population) is part of the New York Metropolitan Area, as well as New York City and the five largest cities in New Jersey (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, and Edison), which is widely referred to as the Tri-State area. Connecticut’s center of population is in Cheshire, which is also located within the Tri-State area.   read more…

Providence in Rhode Island

6 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Thomas P. Ives house in Spring © Kenneth C. Zirkel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Thomas P. Ives house in Spring © Kenneth C. Zirkel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Providence is the capital and most populous city in Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region. The city proper population of 180,000 anchors the 37th largest metropolitan population in the country, with an estimated MSA population of 1,600,000, exceeding that of Rhode Island by about 60% because of its reaching into southern Massachusetts. This MSA in turn is part of the larger Greater Boston commuting area, which contains 7.6 million people.   read more…

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