Maryland officially joined the Union on April 28, 1788, as the seventh
state. Located on the eastern seaboard in the South Atlantic region,
it is bordered by Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and the Atlantic Ocean. Maryland is the eighth-smallest state in the
United States, with a total area of 10,460 square miles (27,092 square
kilometers).
Maryland was home to several Native American tribes, including the
Accomac, Susquehannock, and Piscataway. The first European visitors to
the region came from Italy and Spain in the early sixteenth century.
Captain John Smith (c. 1580–1631) was the first English explorer of
Chesapeake Bay (1608).
In 1689, the British took control of the region that would become
Maryland, Delaware, and a large part of Pennsylvania. Approximately
twenty thousand Maryland soldiers fought in the American Revolution
(1775–83). During the War of 1812 (1812–15), Fort McHenry in
Baltimore was bombarded. During the attack, Francis Scott Key
(1779–1843) found himself stuck on a British frigate, and there he composed the poem that later became the national anthem, the “StarSpangled Banner.”
Marylanders fought on both sides during the American Civil War
(1861–65). One of the major battles—the Battle of Antietam in 1862—took place in Maryland. After the war, the state played an important part in rebuilding the South. Shipbuilding, steelmaking, and the
manufacture of clothing and shoes turned the agrarian economy into an
industrial one.
Maryland’s population in 2006 was more than 5.6 million. Whites
comprised 61.5 percent of the population, African Americans another
28.7 percent. Although Annapolis is the capital city, Baltimore is by far
the most densely populated city in the state. Nearly one-third of all
African Americans in the state reside in Baltimore.
In recent years, most of the growth in the state’s economy has been
in government, construction, trade, and services. Maryland’s employees
are the best educated in the nation, with more than one-third of residents over the age of twenty-five possessing a bachelor’s degree at the
beginning of the twenty-first century. Industry, fishing, dairy, and poultry farming are important to the state’s economy. Tobacco used to be the
state’s only cash crop, but now soybeans, wheat, barley, and various fruits
and vegetables add to the state’s gross national product.
Baltimore is home to Johns Hopkins University, which includes a
highly regarded medical school, and Annapolis boasts the U.S. Naval
Academy.