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New Hampshire,
NH

New Hampshire is a state in the New England
region of the northeastern United States of America named
after the southern English county of Hampshire.
The state ranks 44th in land area, 46th in
total area of the 50 states, and 41st in population.
It was one of the original Thirteen Colonies
and became the ninth state to ratify the United States
Constitution.
New Hampshire was the first U.S. state to have
its own state constitution, and is the only state with neither
a general sales tax nor a personal income tax.
It is internationally famous for the New
Hampshire primary, the first primary in the quadrennial U.S.
presidential election cycle.
Its license plates carry the state motto: "Live
Free or Die."
The state nickname is "The Granite State", in
reference both to its geology and to its tradition of
self-sufficiency. Several other official nicknames exist but
are rarely used.
A number of famous individuals come from New
Hampshire, such as Senator Daniel Webster, editor Horace
Greeley, founder of the Christian Science religion Mary Baker
Eddy, author Dan Brown, and comedians Adam Sandler, Sarah
Silverman, and Seth Meyers. New Hampshire has produced one
president, Franklin Pierce.
New Hampshire's recreational attractions
include skiing and other winter sports, observing the fall
foliage, summer cottages along many lakes, motor sports at the
New Hampshire International Speedway, and Bike Week, a popular
motorcycle rally held in Laconia in June.
Geography
New Hampshire is part of the New England
region. It is bounded by Quebec, Canada to the north and
northwest; Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east;
Massachusetts to the south; and Vermont to the west.
New Hampshire's major regions are the Great
North Woods, the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, the
Seacoast, the Merrimack Valley, the Monadnock Region, and the
Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee area. New Hampshire has the shortest
ocean coastline of any U.S. state, with a length of 18 miles
(29 km).
New Hampshire was home to the rock formation
called the Old Man of the Mountain, a face-like profile in
Franconia Notch, until the formation fell apart in May 2003.
The White Mountains range in New Hampshire
spans the north-central portion of the state, with Mount
Washington being the tallest in the northeastern U.S., and
other mountains like Mount Madison and Mount Adams surrounding
it.
With hurricane-force winds every third day on
the average, over 100 recorded deaths among visitors, and
conspicuous krumholtz (dwarf, matted trees much like a carpet
of bonsai trees), the upper reaches of Mount Washington claim
the title of having the "worst weather on earth." A non-profit
weather observatory is located on the peak.
In the flatter southwest corner of New
Hampshire, the prominent landmark Mount Monadnock, has given
its name to a general class of earth-forms—a monadnock
signifying, in geomorphology, any isolated resistant peak
rising from a less resistant eroded plain. Major rivers
include the 110 mile (177 km) Merrimack River, which bisects
the lower half of the state north-south and ends up in
Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Its major tributaries include the Contoocook
River, Pemigewasset River, and Winnipesaukee River. The 410
mile (670 km) Connecticut River, which starts at New
Hampshire's Connecticut Lakes and flows south to Connecticut,
defines the western border with Vermont.
Oddly, the state border is not in the center of
that river, as is usually the case, but lies at the low-water
mark on the Vermont side; so New Hampshire actually owns the
entire river where it runs adjacent to Vermont. The "northwesternmost
headwaters" of the Connecticut also define the Canadian border
with New Hampshire.
The Piscataqua River and its several
tributaries form the state's only significant ocean port where
they flow into the Atlantic at Portsmouth.
The Salmon Falls
River and the Piscataqua define the southern portion of the
border with Maine.
The state has an ongoing boundary dispute with
Maine in the area of Portsmouth Harbor, with New Hampshire
claiming dominion over several islands (now known as Seavey
Island) that include the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard as well as
to the Maine towns of Kittery and Berwick.
The largest lake is Lake Winnipesaukee, which
covers 72 square miles (186 km˛) in the east-central part of
New Hampshire. Hampton Beach is a popular local summer
destination.
About 10 miles (16 km) offshore are the Isles of
Shoals, nine small islands (4 belonging to the state) best
known as the site of a 19th century art colony founded by poet
Celia Thaxter, as well as the alleged location of one of the
buried treasures of the pirate Blackbeard.
It is the second-most-forested state in the
country, after Maine, in terms of percentage of land covered
by woods.
This change was caused by the abandonment of
farms during the 20th century as many farmers took wage jobs
in urban areas or moved to more productive areas. The return
of woodlands from open fields forms the subject of many poems
by Robert Frost.
The northern third of the state is locally
referred to as the "north country" or "north of the notches,"
in reference to White Mountain passes that channel traffic.
It contains less than 5% of the state's
population, suffers from relatively high poverty rates, and is
losing population as the logging and paper industries decline.
However, the tourist industry, in particular
visitors who go to northern New Hampshire to take advantage of
the winter skiing season, has helped to offset economic losses
from mill closures.
This article is licensed under
the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia
article "New Hampshire".
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