Maryland (i / ˈ m ɛr əl ən d /)[6] is an American state A U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of commonwealth rather than state. State citizenship is located in the Mid Atlantic region The Mid-Atlantic states, also called middle Atlantic states or simply the mid Atlantic, form a region of the United States generally located between New England and the South. Its exact definition differs upon source, but the region often includes Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and sometimes New York, Virginia and of the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, bordering Virginia The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Land from displaced Native American tribes and slave labor each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia, West Virginia West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions, breaking away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of only two states formed during the and the District of Columbia Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the to its south and west; Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary to its north; and Delaware Delaware is located in the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest state in area . Estimates in 2007 rank the population of Delaware as 45th in the nation, but 6th in population density, with more than 60% of the population in New Castle County. Delaware is divided into three counties. From north to south, these to its east. According to the U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data. As part of the United States Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau serves as a leading source of data about America's people and economy, Maryland has the highest median household income of any state, with a median income of $70,545.[7] Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the, and three nicknames for it, the Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State are occasionally used.
Maryland is a major center for life sciences Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy research and development. With more than 350 biotechnology companies located there, Maryland is the third-largest nexus in this field in the United States.[8]
Institutions and government agencies with an interest in research and development located in Maryland include the Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Johns Hopkins also maintains full-time campuses elsewhere in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, China, and Singapore. Johns Hopkins University is particularly famous for its world-, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, more than one campus of the University System of Maryland The University System of Maryland is a public corporation and charter school system comprising 13 Maryland institutions of higher education. It is the 12th-largest university system in the United States, with over 100,000 undergraduate, 30,000 graduate and 8,700 faculty. In 1988, it was created from the merger of the five University of Maryland, the National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. It consists of 27 separate institutes and centers which includes the Office of the Director. Francis S. Collins is the current (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), is a measurement standards laboratory which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. The institute's official mission is: (NIST), the National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health is part of the federal government of the United States and the largest research organization in the world specializing in mental illness. It is one of the 27 component organizations of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is in turn part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was (NIMH), the federal Food and Drug Administration The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments, responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter (FDA), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research institute based in Chevy Chase (CDP), Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United States. HHMI spends about $1 million per HHMI, the Celera Genomics Celera Corporation was formerly a business unit of the Applera Corporation, but was spun off in July 2008 to become an independent publicly traded company. Celera focuses on genetic sequencing and related technologies company, Human Genome Sciences Human Genome Sciences is a biopharmaceutical corporation founded in 1992. Its stated purpose is to "discover, develop, manufacture and market innovative drugs that serve patients with unmet medical needs, with a primary focus on protein and antibody drugs." The company focuses on drug development, as well as drug discovery and currently ( (HGS),the J. Craig Venter Institute The J. Craig Venter Institute is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. in October 2006. The Institute was the result of consolidating four organizations: the Center for the Advancement of Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research, the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, and the J. Craig Venter (JCVI), and MedImmune MedImmune, LLC, headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca in 2007. Since being acquired, MedImmune has remained a Maryland-based biotechnology development enterprise. It produces Synagis, a drug for the prevention of respiratory infections in infants, which accounted for US$ 1.06 billion of its US$ 1.2 - recently purchased by AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc is a global pharmaceutical and biologics company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's seventh largest pharmaceutical company measured by revenues and has operations in over 100 countries. It has a portfolio of products for major disease areas including cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection,.
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Geography
Physical geography
See also: List of islands in Maryland Categories: Islands of Maryland | Lists of islands | Islands of the Potomac River | Maryland-related lists and List of rivers in Maryland Categories: Lists of rivers of the United States by state | Rivers of Maryland | Maryland-related listsMaryland possesses a great variety of topography Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those of planets, moons, and asteroids. It is also the description of such surface shapes and features (especially their depiction in maps), hence its nickname, "America in Miniature."[9] It ranges from sandy dunes In physical geography, a dune is a hill of sand built by aeolian processes. Dunes occur in different forms and sizes, formed by interaction with the wind. Most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter "slip face" in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is dotted with seagrass in the east, to low marshlands teeming with wildlife and large bald cypress Taxodium is a genus of one to three species (depending on taxonomic opinion) of extremely flood-tolerant conifers in the cypress family, Cupressaceae. The generic name is derived from the Latin word taxus, meaning "yew", and the Greek word εἶδος (eidos), meaning "similar to." Within the family, Taxodium is most closely near the bay, to gently rolling hills of oak An Oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist on earth. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus. The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cold latitudes to tropical Asia and the Americas forest in the Piedmont Region Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division. The province consists of the Piedmont Upland and, and pine See Pinus classification for complete taxonomy to species level. See list of pines by region for list of species by geographical distribution groves in the mountains Cities | Government | History | People | Congressional Delegations | Congressional Maps | Economy | Index of Maryland-related articles | Visitor Attractions | Sports to the west.
Physical regions of Maryland. Tidal wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay, largest estuary An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea in the United States and the largest water feature in Maryland.Maryland is bounded on its north by Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary, on its west by West Virginia West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions, breaking away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of only two states formed during the, on its east by Delaware Delaware is located in the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest state in area . Estimates in 2007 rank the population of Delaware as 45th in the nation, but 6th in population density, with more than 60% of the population in New Castle County. Delaware is divided into three counties. From north to south, these and the Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres , it covers approximately twenty percent of the Earth's surface and about twenty-six percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the ", and on its south, across the Potomac River The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately 383 statute miles (616 km) long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles (38,000 km²). In terms of area, this makes the Potomac River the fourth largest river along the Atlantic coast of the USA and the 2, by West Virginia and Virginia The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Land from displaced Native American tribes and slave labor each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted on the Maryland side by Washington, DC Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the, which sits on land that was originally part of Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers 64,299 square miles (166,534 km2) in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. More than 150 nearly bisects the state, and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore The Eastern Shore of Maryland is composed of the American state's nine counties that are east of the Chesapeake Bay. They are Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County.
Most of the state's waterways are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the exceptions of a tiny portion of extreme western Garrett County Garrett County is the westernmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. Created from Allegany County, Maryland in 1872 it was the last Maryland county to be formed. It was named for John Work Garrett , railroad executive, industrialist, and financier. Garrett served as president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1858 until his death in 1884 (drained by the Youghiogheny River The Youghiogheny River , or the Yough (pronounced /ˈjɒk/) for short, is a tributary of the Monongahela River, approximately 122 mi (195 km) long, in the U.S. states of West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. It drains an area on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains northward into Pennsylvania, providing a small watershed in extreme as part of the watershed of the Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. About 2,320 miles long, the river originates at Lake Itasca, Minnesota and flows slowly southwards in sweeping meanders, terminating 95 river miles below New Orleans, Louisiana where it begins to flow to the Gulf of Mexico. Along with its major tributary, the Missouri River, the), the eastern half of Worcester County (which drains into Maryland's Atlantic coastal bays), and a small portion of the state's northeast corner (which drains into the Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. The Delaware was explored by Adriaen Block as part of the New Netherlands Colony, and was named the South River to mark the southernmost reach of that colony watershed). So prominent is the Chesapeake in Maryland's geography and economic life that there has been periodic agitation to change the state's official nickname to the Bay State, a nickname that has actually been used by Massachusetts Massachusetts has been significant throughout American history. Plymouth was the second permanent English settlement in North America. Many of Massachusetts's towns were founded by colonists from England in the 1620s and 1630s. During the eighteenth century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that led for a long time.
The highest point in Maryland, with an elevation of 3,360 feet (1,020 m), is Hoye Crest on Backbone Mountain Backbone Mountain is a ridge of the Allegheny Mountains of the central Appalachian Mountain Range. It is situated in the U.S. states of West Virginia and Maryland and forms a portion of the Eastern Continental Divide. Its summit is the highest point in the state of Maryland, in the southwest corner of Garrett County Garrett County is the westernmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. Created from Allegany County, Maryland in 1872 it was the last Maryland county to be formed. It was named for John Work Garrett , railroad executive, industrialist, and financier. Garrett served as president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1858 until his death in 1884, near the border with West Virginia and near the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac River. Close to the small town of Hancock Hancock is a town in Washington County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,725 at the 2000 census. The Western Maryland community is notable for being located at the narrowest part of the state that is only 2 miles wide, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state, there is only 1.83 miles (2.95 km) between its borders. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason-Dixon Line to the north, and the northwards-arching Potomac River to the south.
Maryland is comparable in overall area with the European country of Belgium.[10]
Portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. For example, the Delmarva Peninsula is composed of the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the entire state of Delaware, and the two counties that make up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, whereas the westernmost counties of Maryland are considered part of Appalachia. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain,[11] though it straddles the border between the two regions.
A quirk of Maryland's geography is that the state contains no natural lakes,[12] though there are numerous ponds. During the latter Ice Ages, the glaciers did not reach as far south as Maryland, and therefore they did not carve out the deep natural lakes that exist in states farther north. There are numerous man-made lakes, the largest of these being the Deep Creek Lake, a reservoir in Garrett County in westernmost Maryland. The lack of a glacial history also accounts for Maryland's soil, which is sandier and muddier than the rocky soils farther to the north and northeast.
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Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:05:04 GMT+00:00
Washington Post (blog) After Hurricane Earl breezed well east of the Maryland and Delaware beaches, early evening travelers breezed easily over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge early ... Winds from Hurricane Earl could create traffic trouble on the Bay Bridge ABC2 News
Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:53:00 PDT
www.morefunhere.com a recent study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society predicts the planet's oceans will ... youtube.com.
