When the first United States census was taken in 1790, the center of population was found to be in Maryland. The state is often called America in miniature. Its geography and history have given it the ways of the North, the South, the East, and the West. Within its borders are the shorelines and river valleys, the rolling upland hills and wooded mountains characteristic of much of the nation. Here, too, prosperous farms border mighty industries, and the rural charm of the Old South combines with the bustling activity of Northern cities.
One of the 13 original states in the Union, Maryland was settled in 1634 mainly by freedom-seeking Roman Catholics who prospered by growing tobacco and exporting it to their English homeland. Later clipper ships carried Maryland's trade to Asia and South America. As the nation expanded westward, Marylanders built canals and railroads to bring the goods of the newly settled areas to their cities and ports. Today its farms and industries give it a rank among the states far out of proportion to its size.
The state's busy commercial area at the upper (north) end of Chesapeake Bay is much like the industrial North. Its economic center is Baltimore, a major port and the 18th largest metropolitan area in the nation. Eastern and southern Maryland more nearly resemble the heart of the South, with many fine old homes, large tobacco plantations, and a slower pace of living. The original Mason and Dixon's Line, which was established as the boundary between the Maryland and Pennsylvania colonies, was long considered the dividing line between the Northern and Southern ways of life.
The popular nickname for Maryland is the Old Line State, supposedly suggested by Gen. George Washington in admiration for the performance of the Maryland troops during the American Revolution. Another nickname, Free State, is used to honor Maryland's long tradition of freedom, especially religious freedom (though it was originally proposed by a newspaper editor to criticize the state's position against prohibition). Maryland was named for Queen Henrietta Maria (Mary), the wife of Charles I of England, who granted the province to Lord Baltimore in 1632. Part of the original Mason and Dixon's Line was marked by stones that bore on one side the arms of Lord Baltimore and on the other those of William Penn. Some of these still stand. When slavery was abolished in the states north of the line and prohibited in territory north of the Ohio River, the name Mason and Dixon's Line was popularly given to an extension of the original boundary.
Maryland is an Atlantic coastal state bounded on the north by Pennsylvania. To the west is West Virginia. To the south the Potomac River separates Maryland from West Virginia and Virginia. On the Maryland side of the Potomac, and surrounded by Maryland on three sides, is the District of Columbia. East of Chesapeake Bay is the Eastern Shore of Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula. (The name of this peninsula is a combination of the names Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.) Here Virginia borders on the south and the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware on the east. The state's greatest length, from east to west, is 195 miles (314 kilometers), along the Pennsylvania border. Its greatest width is 125 miles (201 kilometers). Across the narrow western neck in Washington County the north-south distance is only a couple of miles. The area of Maryland is 10,577 square miles (27,394 square kilometers), including 686 square miles (1,777 square kilometers) of inland water surface. Chesapeake Bay, thrusting northward into the state for about 180 miles (290 kilometers), provides about 3,600 miles (5,790 kilometers) of water frontage.
