Rhode Island

Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly less than 1.1 million residents as of 2020; however, Rhode Island has grown at every decennial count since 1790 and is the second-most densely populated state, behind New Jersey. Rhode Island is the seventh-least populous state in the United States. Although though the vast majority of the state's territory is located on the mainland, it was named for the island that serves as its eponym. Rhode Island is surrounded by Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, the Atlantic Ocean to the south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound, and it also shares a small maritime border with New York to the east of Long Island. Connecticut is to the west of Rhode Island, Massachusetts is to the north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean is to the south. Both its name and its status as the most populated city belong to Providence.

When English colonists arrived in the area in the early 17th century, Native People had already established a long-established culture in the Narragansett Bay region. Roger Williams, a religious dissenter who was persecuted for his beliefs in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, established Rhode Island as a sanctuary for religious liberty. This made Rhode Island the only one of the Thirteen British Colonies to have been created by a religious refugee. In 1636, he established Providence on property that he had acquired from the indigenous people of the area, making it the first colony in North America to have a government that was officially secular. The name "Rogue's Island" was given to the former British colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations as a result of its reputation as a haven for social and religious radicals, political dissidents, and political refugees.

Rhode Island was the first colony to abandon its allegiance to the British Crown, which it did on May 4, 1776, and the first province to ask for a Continental Congress, which it did in 1774. Both of these events occurred in 1774. Rhode Island was the fourth state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on February 9, 1778. During the American Revolution, Rhode Island was extensively occupied and disputed, and as a result, it was the state that became the fourth to ratify the Articles of Confederation. It initially refused to ratify the United States Constitution, which had been drafted in 1787, but eventually did so on May 29, 1790, making it the last of the original 13 states to do so. The citizens of this state wanted a weaker central government, so they boycotted the convention in 1787 that had drafted the Constitution of the United States.

During the time of the colonial settlers, it had been referred to formally as the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, although it was more frequently referred to simply as "Rhode Island." The citizens of the state passed an amendment to the state constitution in November 2020, officially removing "and Providence Plantations" from the state's complete name. Its official nickname is the "Ocean State," which is a reference to the fact that it has a coastline that is 400 miles (640 km) long and has a number of significant bays and inlets that account for around 14% of its total area.