Maine

Maine entered the Union as the twenty-third state, on March 15, 1820. Located in the extreme northeastern corner of the United States, Maine is the most easterly state and ranks thirty-ninth in size among the fifty. It is bordered by Canada, New Hampshire , and the Atlantic Ocean.

As early as 1600, English expeditions began fishing the Gulf of Maine. Within thirty years, there were English settlements on several of the many islands off the coast, as well as along mainland Maine's coastline. The government of Massachusetts Bay Colony began taking over the small settlements in 1652, and Maine became a district of Massachusetts in 1691. For the first hundred years of Maine's settlement, its economy was based on fishing, farming, trading, and forestry.

Textile mills and shoe factories were built in Maine between 1830 and 1860, but it was papermaking that brought lively new industry to the state after the American Civil War (1861–65). Until then, paper had been made from rags (cloth), but a new process replaced rags with wood pulp. By 1900, Maine was a leader in the paper-making industry, and continues into the twenty-first century.

Maine was home to more than 1.3 million people in 2006. The majority (96.6 percent) of the population was white. The next largest ethnic group was Native Hawaiian /Pacific Islander (0.8 percent), then African American (0.7 percent). Thirty percent of the population was between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four.

Maine was a state of Republicans for the first hundred years after its formation in the 1850s, but that changed as more French-Canadian voters migrated to the state. Twenty-first century Maine is largely a Democratic state.

The economy of Maine depends heavily upon its natural resources. The state's largest industry during the first decade of the twenty-first century was paper manufacturing, which relies on forests and water power. Other manufacturing includes wood products, footwear, shipbuilding, and electronic components. Although agriculture is not a leading industry in Maine, the state does produce more food crops for human consumption than any other state in New England.

There are no professional sports teams in Maine, but the state hosts millions of tourists each year, most of whom arrive in the months of July, August, and September. Visitors enjoy the area's beaches, and activities such as hunting, sailing, and skiing are popular.