Northeasternmost state of the US, largest of the New England states; nicknamed Pine Tree State
Area 86,200 sq km/33,273 sq mi
Capital Augusta
Towns and cities Portland, Lewiston, Bangor
Physical Appalachian Mountains; 80% of the state is forested
Features Kennebec and Penobscot rivers; 5,600 km/3,500 mi of coastline; Acadia national park, including Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island, the first national park in eastern us; Baxter state park, with Mount Katahdin (1,605 m/5,267 ft), the highest peak in the state, the N end of the Appalachian Trail; canoeing on the Allagush Wilderness Waterway; Moosehead Lake (190 sq km/120 sq mi), New England’s largest lake; Sebago Lake; Penobscot Bay, with lobster fishing centered on Rockland; Roosevelt Campobello International Park, the summer home of President F D Roosevelt; South Berwick, the site of the first permanent settlement in Maine (1631), with old houses including Sarah Orne Jewett House (1774); Artist’s Covered Bridge, Newry (1872); Colonial York; Camden; Castine; Prout’s Neck, the summer home of the artist Winslow Homer, with Portland Head Light; Paris Hill; Ogunquit, a 19th-century artists’ colony; the Kennebunks, including Kennebunkport with the Wedding Cake House, and the summer home of former president George Bush; Portland Museum of Art, with a 1983 wing designed by I M Pei, housing a collection of American art; Old Port Exchange, Portland, a renovated 19th-century waterfront area; Musical Wonder House, Wiscasset, with a collection of antique musical boxes and mechanical musical instruments; Maine Maritime Museum, Bath; Bowdoin College (1794); Norway, famous for the manufacture of snowshoes (Admiral Peary walked to the North Pole on Norway snowshoes); Perham’s Mineral Store, West Paris; L L Bean store, Freeport; Kittery, with factory outlet stores; Poland Spring, source of famous mineral water
Industries dairy and market garden produce, paper, pulp, timber, footwear, textiles, fish, lobster; tourism is important
Population (1990) 1,228,000
Famous people Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Edward Arlington Robinson, Edna St Vincent Millay
History permanently settled by the British from 1623; absorbed by Massachusetts 1691; became a state 1820.
In colonial days, white-pine masts were built for the Royal Navy at Falmouth (now Portland). Maine produces 98% of the nation's blueberries and has the largest papermaking capacity of any of the 50 states but is generally economically depressed.
(French river) French river, 11 km/7 mi long, formed by the junction of the Mayenne and Sarthe; it enters the Loire below Angers, and gives its name to Maine-et-Loire département.(French province) Old French province bounded N by Normandy, W by Brittany, and S by Anjou. The modern départements of Sarthe and Mayenne approximately correspond with it.A state in New England; Also called: Pine Tree State.

Sir Henry James Sumner 1822-1888 English jurist