When Captain John Smith voyaged to the region in 1614 he mapped the coast and named the area in his A Description of New England. Eventually, New England came to include the six states that form the northeastern corner of the United States: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Its people, unified to a large extent by a shared geography, climate and history, are known for their conservative dress and mannerisms and their taciturn behavior—one of the most clearly defined of American regional identities.

Carved by glaciers during the Ice Age, New England is in the paths of three major weather systems moving from Canada, the Great Lakes and up the eastern seaboard. Its weather, therefore, is extreme, variable and somewhat unpredictable.

When Europeans explored and traded with the American Indians the latter were decimated by diseases from abroad, leaving much of the coast unpopulated. Settlements of English Puritans in the 1620s spread rapidly as thousands of families cultivated the fertile coastal area. By the late 1700s they had destroyed or absorbed almost all of the local tribes.

The English settlements established the pattern for the area’s culture. Like much of rural New England today, a typical village consisted of several families with the same religion. Most people fished, farmed or harvested timber for a living and gathered weekly at the meeting house for religious service, town business and militia drills on the town green. They held an annual town meeting to discuss and vote on each item in the budget and elect officers. These meetings remain an important tradition today.

Throughout the nineteenth century, farming continued and cities grew. Waves of European immigrants filled the factory and day-laborer jobs, and were joined by southern African Americans after Reconstruction failed. Second- and third-generation white New Englanders moved into management and other white-collar professions.

Twentieth-century New England experienced major social, demographic and economic changes. Farming declined and then never recovered from the 1930s Depression. General manufacturing, fishing and forestry also lost ground while new businesses, such as hightech manufacturing, service and tourism, gained rapidly in the last half of the century.

Economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s brought urban-renewal projects to replace poor downtown neighborhoods with parks and businesses, and moved lower-income families to government-subsidized public housing. When manufacturing jobs headed south for lower labor costs, local factory closings created acute unemployment in most cities in the 1960s and 1970s, increasing inner-city decay, crime, family abuse, racial problems and white flight to the suburbs.

As the economy improved, interest rates lowered and unemployment rates declined at the end of the twentieth century. Some of the new urban middle class gentrified formerly decaying neighborhoods, and many New England cities conducted beautification programs to invigorate their centers.

Better incomes for other work and high prices for land lured most farm families to sell; by the end of the century few of New England’s farms were active. Rural New England became mostly bedroom towns and new woodlands, evidenced by former farmers’ stone walls lacing the forests. Suburbia grew from cities onto the farmland. Housing developments, shopping centers, malls, chain convenience stores and retail strips became part of the landscape.

Tourism throughout New England is substantial. Avid outdoor sports enthusiasts and other tourists find their way to New England’s picturesque towns, mountains, pastoral vistas of rolling hills and farmlands, forests with brilliant autumn colors, coastlines of sandy beaches, estuaries lined with cattails and marsh grasses, and miles of craggy granite. The states’ many glacially formed lakes and coast attract millions escaping summer’s heat.

A deeply rooted maritime history imbues the coast with mystique and romance. Small coastal villages and towns, first established as fishing communities, later became summer havens for the wealthy and artists, and then vacation destinations for the middle class and tourists. While able to absorb many summer dwellers, some villages changed their character when tourist businesses took control. Nonetheless, many coastal communities from western Connecticut to eastern Maine retain their maritime culture.

The significance of local history is evident in the landmarks and historic sites that abound throughout the region. A renewed interest in many Americans’ genealogy has helped maintain historic buildings and archival information through local and national historic preservation groups. It has also helped local Native Americans re-establish themselves after centuries of almost invisible existence.

The presence of many educational institutions of higher learning in New England is an important force in its culture and economy Boston, MA, “The Hub” of New England, has the highest concentration of college students in the world. It attracts some of the best intellects who have stayed in the region to create new technology and service industries.

Originally they concentrated on the Route 128 beltway around Boston (Silicon Alley), but then spread to the fringes of New England in the 1980s and 1990s with advanced telecommunications.

New Englanders’ politics are hard to define. Conservative in much of their thinking, they are liberal about human and individual rights. While many New Englanders voted Republican in the twentieth century regional politics also include many registered independent voters, women in high offices and the Democratic Party’s powerful Kennedy dynasty. The New Hampshire primary first presidential contest, brings national attention to these political currents every four years.

The extreme climate and geography of New England, which hardened the early settlers and their ensuing generations, helped define the “Yankee Character.” Although the image has eased over time due to the influences of mass media, mobility and the gradual introduction of other cultures into New England’s populace, practicality self-reliance, a strong work ethic and a stoic acceptance of life’s difficulties have continued to be facets of this traditional people.