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MAINE: FASCINATING FACTS AND FIGURES

Maine...

• is recognized as one of the most healthful states in the nation with summer temperatures averaging 70° F and winter temperatures averaging 20° F.
• has 5,500 miles of coastline, and about 2000 islands off the coast.
• is about 320 miles long and 210 miles wide, with a total area of 33,215 square miles or about as big as all of the other five New England States combined.
• consists of 16 counties with 22 cities, 435 towns, 33 plantations, 424 unorganized townships and 1.2 million residents.
• has 542,629 acres of state and national parks, including the 92-mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Acadia National Park and Baxter State Park (location of Mt. Katahdin and the northern end of the Appalachian Trail).
• has one mountain which is approximately one mile high - Mt. Katahdin (5,271 ft. above sea level).
• claims America's first chartered city: York, 1641.
• has the largest wild blueberry crop in the nation, raising 99 percent of all wild blueberries in the United States and is the single largest producer of any blueberries (wild or cultivated) in the U.S.
• ranks seventh in acreage and tenth in production of potatoes nationally.
• is nationally famed for its shellfish. Almost 90 percent of all American lobster are trapped in Maine.
• is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi with only 41.3 people per square mile, compared to the national average of 79.6 per square mile.
• is the only state in the continental U.S. to be bordered by only one other state (New Hampshire).
• contains 32,000 miles of rivers and streams which is more than the combined length of the Mississippi, Amazon, Yangtze and Nile rivers.
• is home to baseball's Portland Sea Dogs, the AA farm team of the Boston Red Sox, and the Portland Pirates, the minor league hockey affiliate of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
• is/was home to Patrick Dempsey (actor), Stephen King (writer), Hannibal Hamlin (the nation's first Republican vice president), L.L. Bean, Chester Greenwood (inventor of the earmuffs), Joan Benoit Samuelson (winner of first ever women's Olympic marathon) and Seth Wescott (winner of the first Olympic gold medal in snowboardercross).
• was the muse of many famous writers including: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, E.B. White, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Stephen King and artists, including: Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent, Jamie Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth..

Updated March 2008