Posted
on December 7, 2016
Delaware
is #49 out of 50 in size (area).
It's
#45 out of 50 in population.
It's
#8 out of 50 in economies (according to a 2014 Business Insider article).
So
why am I claiming that Delaware is #1?
Delaware
was the first of the 13 colonies to ratify the new U.S. Constitution,
on this date in 1787. So it is ranked #1 out of 50 in admission to
the nation!
And that is why one of its nicknames is “The First State.”
What
else makes Delaware special?
First
of all, this state is so small, it has no national parks / seashores
/ historic sites / monuments / whatever that are entirely inside of
the state. The only parts of the National Park System that are inside
Delaware are two National Historic Trails that cross many states and
a National Historical Park – called First State – that includes
220 acres of woods and pastures in Delaware County, Pennsylvania!
And
one of Delaware's towns, Delmar, is partly in the neighboring state
of Maryland.
That
spillover-the-border thing isn't that unusual in a large city like
Kansas City (there's a Kansas City, Kansas, and a Kansas City,
Missouri, which straddle the state border) – but it's an oddity in
a really small town. In 2010, Delmar only had about 4,600 residents –
so it is about the size of my old high school!
New
Sweden, founded in 1638, was the first permanent colony in Delaware.
As a matter of fact, the first log cabins built in the New World were
built in Delaware by those Swedish settlers. At the time, Finland was
part of Sweden, so those log-cabin-building settlers were actually
Finns, and some people credit Finland as the original home of the log
cabin, although Americans often think of it as an American icon.
And
of course, Delaware has lovely beaches and sunsets...
...and
Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge. Which is a stop for migrating birds...
...a
LOT of birds!
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