On January 9, 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to enter the
Union. At 5,018 square miles (12,977 square kilometers), it ranks fortyeighth in size. Located in the northeastern United States in the region
known as New England, Connecticut is surrounded by Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, and New York. In spite of its small size, Connecticut has six thousand lakes and
ponds. New England’s longest river, the 407-mile (655-kilometer)
Connecticut River, divides the state in half.
The state’s population in 2006 was just over 3.6 million, with 28
percent of them in the 25 to 44 age range. Connecticut’s population is
predominantly white (81.2%). Hartford, the capital, is the state’s thirdlargest city, behind Bridgeport and New Haven.
In the early 1600s, Connecticut was home to six to seven thousand
Native Americans divided into sixteen tribes. By the 1770s, white settlers
and the European diseases they had brought with them left fewer than
fifteen hundred Native Americans.
Between 1630 and 1642, about twenty thousand English Puritans
migrated to Connecticut Colony. These Puritan roots made Connecticut
a patriot stronghold during the American Revolution (1775–83). The
state’s most famous Revolutionary War hero was Nathan Hale
(1755–1776), who was executed as a British spy.
Connecticut was an antislavery state long before the American Civil
War (1861–65), and it was a major stop on the Underground Railroad
(the secret system by which slaves escaped to freedom). By the twentieth
century, the state’s textile industry ranked sixth in the nation.
Connecticut was also a major firearms manufacturer. These developments changed the state’s agrarian society into an industrial one.
In the 1980s, Connecticut was the nation’s wealthiest state. This
prosperity came about, in part, because of the expansion of the U.S. military budget: 70 percent of Connecticut’s manufacturing sector was involved in making weapons. But the gap had increased between the
standards of living enjoyed by the state’s wealthy residents and those who
lived in poverty. By 1992, the median family income in many suburbs
was almost twice that of those in the urban areas. In the twenty-first century, 8.8 percent of the residents lived below the federal poverty level,
compared to the national average of 12.4 percent.
Connecticut’s voters usually vote Democratic. The primary religion
is Roman Catholic. The state’economy is driven by six areas of industry:
aerospace; communications, information, and education; financial services; health and biomedical; business services; and tourism and entertainment.