Maryland

Long before Europeans arrived, the Chesapeake Bay watershed was home to Piscataway, Nanticoke and Susquehannock peoples who fished its rich waters and farmed its shores. English settlers established the colony in 1634 under a charter granted to the Calvert family, naming it for Henrietta Maria, queen consort to Charles I, and founding St. Mary's City as an early experiment in religious toleration for Catholics and Protestants alike.

Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the Constitution in 1788 and later donated land carved from its own territory to create the new federal capital, Washington, D.C. During the War of 1812, the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbour inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and the state's divided loyalties during the Civil War left a complicated legacy still visible in its historic sites.

Today Maryland blends old maritime culture with modern industry: Annapolis remains a working sailing capital and home to the U.S. Naval Academy, Baltimore has reinvented its harbourfront around biotech, arts and its storied seafood scene, and the Eastern Shore's marshes and barrier islands preserve a slower, tidewater way of life that has defined the Bay for centuries.