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Rhode Island,
RI

Rhode Island, official name State of Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New
England region of the northeastern United States of America.
It is the smallest state by area, and the 8th
smallest by population.
Its official name is the longest official name
of any U.S. state. Rhode Island was the first of the thirteen
original American colonies to declare independence from
British rule, signaling the start of the American Revolution;
it was also the first state that engaged in armed hostilities
with British property and authorities. Rhode Island did not
participate in the Philadelphia Convention and was also the
last of the original thirteen states to ratify the United
States Constitution.
Despite its name, most of the state of Rhode
Island lies on the North American mainland. Providence
Plantations refers to the mainland, while Rhode Island was the
17th and 18th century name for Aquidneck Island (now composed
of the city of Newport, and the towns of Middletown and
Portsmouth).
Rhode Island has long held the nickname of
"Little Rhody", though the state has officially adopted the
nickname of "the Ocean State," as nearly one tenth of Rhode
Island's inland area is covered by salt water, and no part of
the state is more than a 45-minute drive from the water's
edge.
Origin of the name
In 1524, Italian navigator, Giovanni da
Verrazzano was the first European to visit any part of what is
now Rhode Island.
He came to what is now Block Island and named
it "Luisa" after Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France.
Verrazzano described Luisa as "about the size of the Island of
Rhodes".
When the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations surveyed the land, they thought
that Aquidneck Island was the place.
A mistake occurred in 1614, when Luisa was
charted by the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block, after whom Luisa
was renamed by the Dutch West India Company; however, their
motives in doing so are unknown.
The official explanation by the State of Rhode
Island is that Adriaen Block named the area "Roodt Eylandt"
meaning "red island" in reference to the red clay that lined
the shore, and that the name was later anglicized when the
region came under British rule.
Geography
Rhode Island covers an area of approximately
1,214 square miles (3,144 kmē) and is bordered on the north
and east by Massachusetts, on the west by Connecticut, and on
the south by Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
It shares a water border with New York between
Block Island and Long Island. The mean elevation of the state
is 200 feet (60 m). Located within the New England province of
the Appalachian Region, Rhode Island has two distinct natural
regions.
This article is licensed under
the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia
article "Rhode Island".
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