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Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is the northernmost portion of both New England and the eastern United States. The state is known for its scenery — its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, and its heavily forested interior — as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams.
The name comes from the Old French Maienne, meaning river of the middle, and first appears in provincial documents dating from 1622, in a charter of the Council of New England granting land to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. The portion that came to be Mason's in 1629 he personally dubbed New Hampshire, in spite of which a second charter of the same year labeled it Laconia. Gorges volleyed with yet another name for his territory, New Somerset. This was strongly disliked by King Charles and he responded in a 1639 charter that it "shall forever hereafter be called and named the Province or County of Mayne and not by any other name or names whatsoever". Despite the tone of finality, this still was not the last word: other suggestions were Yorkshire, Lygonia and Columbus, the latter two appearing as late as 1819, when statehood was imminent. There have been Maine's in the past. In England, there was a village by the name of Maine on the coast; and Sir Gorges family was from a village which neighbored a village by the name of Broadmayne. The name of the neighboring village changed from time to time; from Maine, Meine, and one section of it was once named Parva Maen.
To the south and east is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north and northeast is New Brunswick, a province of Canada. The Canadian province of Quebec is to the northwest. Maine is both the northernmost state in New England and the largest, accounting for nearly half the region's entire land area. Maine also has the distinction of being the only state to border just one other state (New Hampshire to the west). The municipalities of Eastport and Lubec are, respectively, the easternmost city and town in the 48 contiguous states. Maine's Moosehead Lake is the largest lake in New England (Lake Champlain being partially in New York). Mount Katahdin is both the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, which extends to Springer Mountain, Georgia, and the southern terminus of the new International Appalachian Trail, which, when complete, will run to Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Maine
Maine
Maine also has several unique geographical features. Machias Seal Island, off its easternmost point, is claimed by both the U.S. and Canada and is one of five North American land areas whose sovereignty is still in dispute. Also in this easternmost area is the Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere.
Maine is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi River. It is called the Pine Tree State; 90% of its land is forest. In the forested areas of the interior there is much uninhabited land, some of which does not even have formal political organization into local units. For example, the Northwest Aroostook, Maine unorganized territory in the northern part of the state has an area of 2,668 square miles (6,910 km²) and a population of 27, or one person for every 100 square miles (255 km²).
The rocky coast around Kennebunk.
The rocky coast around Kennebunk.
Maine is equally well known for its dramatic ocean scenery. West Quoddy Head is the easternmost piece of land in the contiguous 48 United States. Along the famous rock-bound coast of Maine are lighthouses, sandy beaches, quiet fishing villages and thousands of offshore islands, including the Isles of Shoals, which straddle the New Hampshire border. Jagged rocks and cliffs and thousands of bays and inlets add to the rugged beauty of Maine's coast. Just inland, by contrast, is the view of sparkling lakes, rushing rivers, green forests and towering mountains. This visual contrast of forested slopes sweeping down to the sea has been aptly summed up by American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay of Rockland and Camden, Maine in "Renascence":
"All I could see from where I stood
was three long mountains and a wood
I turned and looked the other way
and saw three islands and a bay"
More prosaic geologists describe this type of landscape as a drowned coast, where a rising sea level has invaded former land features, creating bays out of valleys and islands out of mountain tops. There has been a partially offsetting rise in land also, due to the melting of heavy glacier ice, which caused a rebounding effect of underlying rock; however, this land rise was not strong enough to eliminate all the effect of the rising sea level and its invasion of some former land features.
The state experiences a continental climate, much more so in the southern part of the state, with Fahrenheit temperatures generally dipping into the 20s and 10s in the winter (−10 degrees Celsius) and 70s and low 80s in the summer (+25 °C). Wind chill often reduces the winter temperature to lows beyond −20 °F (−30 °C). Maine, on occasion, is affected by tropical cyclones although by the time they reach the state, they have become extratropical, and the chances of one reaching Maine at hurricane strength are very slim. Maine has fewer days of thunderstorms than any state east of the Rockies, with most of the state averaging less than 20 days of thunderstorms a year. Tornadoes are rare in Maine with the state averaging less than 2 a year, mostly occurring in the southern part of the state.
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