1. A Mid-Atlantic state; one of the original 13 colonies; Also called: Old Line State, Free State.
2. One of the British colonies that formed the United States.
State of E US; nicknamed Old Line State/Free State
area 31,600 sq km/12,198 sq mi
capital Annapolis
cities Baltimore, Silver Spring, Dundalk, Bethesda
features Chesapeake Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, with Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum; Assateague Island national seashore, a 60-km/37-mi barrier island; the Piedmont; Blackwater national wildlife refuge, marshland with Canada geese, ospreys, and bald eagles; Annapolis, a world yachting center, with the Maryland State House (the only state capitol to have housed the US Congress), and the 40-block Colonial historic district; Baltimore, with the Inner Harbor area (renovated in the 1970s), the USF Constellation (1797, the first commissioned ship of the US Navy), the Walker Art Gallery, Baltimore Maritime Museum with the World War II submarine USS Torsk, Peale Museum, with paintings by Charles Wilson Peale (1814, the oldest museum in the US), the B and O Railroad Museum, Star-Spangled Banner House, H L Mencken House, Edgar Allan Poe House, Babe Ruth’s birthplace, and the Basilica of the Assumption (1812, the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral in the US); horse racing (the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore); St Ma
ry’s City, settled 1634; Ocean City, an Atlantic resort; Columbia, a new city created in the mid-1960s; the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis (1845); Johns Hopkins University, with a famous medical school, and the Peabody Institute for music; St John’s College, Annapolis (1784), the third oldest college in the US, famous for its emphasis on great books; Fort Meade, a government electronic-listening center; historic Fort McHenry
industries poultry, dairy products, machinery, steel, automobiles and parts, electric and electronic equipment, chemicals, fish and shellfish

famous people Stephen Decatur, Francis Scott Key, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Upton Sinclair, H L Mencken, Babe Ruth, Billie Holiday
history one of the original 13 states, first settled 1634; it became a state 1788. In 1608 John Smith explored Chesapeake Bay, but the colony of Maryland, awarded by royal grant 1632 to Lord Baltimore for the settlement of English Catholics, dates from 1634. It ratified the federal Constitution 1788. During the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem The Star-Spangled Banner, which later became the lyrics to the US national anthem. Some Marylanders favored secession during the Civil War, during which the state was largely occupied by Union troops because of its strategic location near Washington, DC and the Confederate armies three times invaded Maryland. In recent times the state has prospered from the growth of the federal government in nearby Washington and the redevelopment of Baltimore, whose port ranks second in handling foreign shipping. Between 1940 and 1980, Maryland’s population more than tripled. + prikaži više