50 Fun Facts About Delaware

Delaware is nicknamed 'The First State' because it was the first to do what?

It acted five days ahead of the next state. The nickname was only made official in 2002.

What is the capital of Delaware?

Dover is only the state's second-largest city, with about 38,000 people. Wilmington, with about 70,000, is the biggest.

Delaware is the second-smallest US state by area. Which is the smallest?

Delaware is also among the least populous states and has the lowest mean elevation of any state.

How many counties does Delaware have, the fewest of any state?

Kent and Sussex are two of them. Rhode Island and Hawaii, the next fewest, each have five.

Delaware takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who was the colonial governor of where?

The bay was named for him first, and the river, the state and the Native people whom the English called Delaware Indians all followed. He barely spent a year in America.

Delaware occupies the northeastern part of which peninsula, shared with two other states?

The name is a mash-up of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Delaware Bay and the Atlantic lie to the east, Chesapeake Bay to the west.

Roughly what share of Fortune 500 companies are legally incorporated in tiny Delaware?

Business-friendly courts and laws, not physical offices, draw them in.

Delaware is one of only five US states with no statewide what?

The others are Alaska, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. Tax-free shopping is a big draw for visitors from neighbouring states.

Most of Delaware's northern border is a rare curved boundary called what?

It is a hangover from a 1681 grant to William Penn, and gives Delaware the whole Delaware River out to the far shore's low-tide mark.

Which European power planted the first settlement in present-day Delaware, at Zwaanendael in 1631?

The name means 'swan valley'. The 28 settlers on the bay were wiped out within a year after a dispute over a piece of decorated tin.

Fort Christina, founded at present-day Wilmington in 1638, was the first North American settlement of which nation?

The colonists arrived aboard the Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip and named the fort after their queen. It became the capital of the New Sweden colony.

Until 1776 Delaware's three counties shared a governor with which neighbouring colony?

Known as the Lower Counties on the Delaware, they had their own assembly from 1701. On June 15, 1776 that assembly broke with Britain and Pennsylvania at the same time.

Which Delaware delegate rode 70 miles overnight in July 1776 to break his delegation's tie on independence?

He suffered from facial cancer and wore a green scarf to hide it. His ride is pictured on the 1999 Delaware state quarter, the first coin in the 50 State Quarters series.

Delaware's 1999 state quarter was the first coin issued in the 50 State Quarters programme. Why?

The coin shows Caesar Rodney on horseback with the words 'The First State'. The second state to ratify got the second coin.

Delaware's state bird, the Blue Hen, gets its name from what?

Captain Jonathan Caldwell's men were nicknamed the 'Blue Hen's Chickens' after their gamecocks. The chicken became the official state bird on April 14, 1939, and University of Delaware teams are the Blue Hens.

Which chemical company was founded in 1802 as a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington?

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, a French émigré, started at the Eleutherian Mills. The company later gave the world neoprene, nylon, Teflon, Kevlar and Lycra.

Which synthetic fibre was first produced at a Wilmington research station on February 28, 1935?

Wallace Carothers led the work but died before it was announced. Its first commercial use was toothbrush bristles in 1938; stockings followed in 1940.

Winterthur, the 175-room mansion and museum north of Wilmington, was the estate of which family?

Henry Francis, an heir of the family, opened it to the public in 1951. Its 90,000 objects make it the largest museum of American furniture and decorative arts in the world.

Wilmington was renamed in 1739 after Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who held which office?

He took his title from Wilmington in East Sussex, England. The city sits where Brandywine Creek meets the Christina River, just before it joins the Delaware.

A 1981 Delaware law scrapping usury limits made Wilmington a national centre for which industry?

The Financial Center Development Act lured card issuers such as Barclays Bank of Delaware. Corporate law and banking together underpin the small state's economy.

Which future president represented Delaware in the US Senate from 1973 to 2009?

His family moved from Scranton to Claymont, Delaware, when he was ten. He won his Senate seat aged 29, becoming the seventh-youngest senator in history, and served as the 46th president.

Reggae star Bob Marley briefly lived in Wilmington, Delaware in 1966, working at which local employers?

He was near his mother's home and used the alias Donald Marley on the Chrysler assembly line in Newark. He soon went back to Jamaica and the Wailers.

Delaware Bay holds the world's largest population of which ancient marine animal?

Migrating red knots and other shorebirds arrive each May to gorge on its eggs. It is also Delaware's official state marine animal.

Which ferry links southern Delaware with New Jersey across the mouth of Delaware Bay?

Cape Henlopen on the Delaware side and Cape May on the Jersey side frame the entrance to the bay.

The Delaware Memorial Bridge to New Jersey is a pair of twin what?

The first span opened in 1951 and the second in 1968, briefly making it the world's second-longest twin suspension bridge. Because of the Twelve-Mile Circle, almost the whole crossing is in Delaware.

Rehoboth Beach bills itself as 'The Nation's Summer Capital' because of holidaymakers from where?

Its population swells from a few thousand to over 25,000 in summer, with visitors from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania too.

Dover Motor Speedway, a concrete NASCAR oval in Delaware's capital, is nicknamed what?

Miles the Monster has been its mascot since 2000, and a 46-foot statue of him holding a car greets fans. The track opened in 1969 alongside a horse-racing course.

At Georgetown, Delaware's post-election 'Return Day', what do winners and losers do together?

The tradition dates from colonial times, when it took two days for results to reach Georgetown from Dover by horse. Rivals ride together in carriages and share an ox roast afterwards.

From 1986 to 2013 Sussex County hosted the World Championship 'Punkin Chunkin'. What did competitors do?

Air cannons, trebuchets and catapults hurled the pumpkins; the Delaware event record was 4,694 feet in 2013. Liability lawsuits ended the annual run.

What happened to Cecile Steele in 1923 that led her to found the US broiler chicken industry?

She raised the surplus birds in a coal-heated barn and her husband sold them for 62 cents a pound. Neighbours copied her, and by 1935 the Steeles were raising 35,000 broilers a year.

Delaware's high point, Ebright Azimuth, is about 448 feet. Which is the only state with a lower high point?

Florida's Britton Hill tops out at 345 feet. Ebright Azimuth sits in a suburban street about 500 feet from the state line and is named after the Ebright family who owned the land.

Delaware was a slave state that stayed in the Union. When did slavery finally end there?

Lincoln's proclamation only applied to states in rebellion, so Delaware and Kentucky kept slavery until the amendment took effect. Delaware's legislature had opposed secession because of its exposed position and ties to the North.

What is Delaware's official state flower?

Peaches were a huge 19th-century crop, and peach pie became the state dessert in 2009. The state tree is the American holly and the state insect the ladybug.

Which surprising choice did Delaware make its official state beverage in 1983?

Its state fish is the weakfish, its state fruit the strawberry and, since 2023, its state dog is any rescue dog.

What is Delaware's state motto?

'The Small Wonder' and 'The Diamond State' are among its nicknames. The state song is 'Our Delaware', written in 1925.

Which Parks and Recreation actress was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1984?

She played April Ludgate on the show and later earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for The White Lotus.

On what date in 1776 did Delaware's assembly vote to break with Britain and its larger neighbour?

It joined the twelve other colonies in declaring independence on July 4. The date is still marked locally as Separation Day.

The Zwaanendael Museum, commemorating the 1631 Dutch colony, stands in which Delaware town?

A monument called De Vries Palisade was dedicated there in 1909. The town sits at the mouth of Delaware Bay beside Cape Henlopen.

The Continental Army regiment nicknamed the 'Blue Hen's Chicks' was formally known as what?

It was regarded as one of the premier regiments in Washington's army. The nickname later gave the state its bird and its university mascot.

Fort Christina was named after the queen of which country?

Christina came to the throne as a child in 1632. The fort her colonists built in 1638 grew into modern Wilmington.

What was Delaware's population rank among the 50 states, according to its Wikipedia summary?

Only Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota and South Dakota have fewer people. Yet its corporate registry lists more businesses than residents.

On what date did Delaware earn its 'First State' nickname?

Pennsylvania followed five days later.

Which Native American people, also known as the Delaware, lived along the coast before colonists came?

The Unami Lenape became middlemen in the fur trade with their old enemy the Minqua; the Nanticoke held much of the southern Delmarva Peninsula.

Delaware's curved northern border is an arc drawn from a courthouse in which city?

The arc runs 12 miles from the courthouse cupola; a sliver called The Wedge was disputed with Pennsylvania until 1921.

How long is Delaware from north to south?

It ranges from just 9 to 35 miles across, with a land area of 1,982 square miles.

Roughly what fraction of Delaware's state revenue comes from franchise taxes on corporations?

More than a million corporations are registered in the state, and 327,103 new businesses were formed there in 2025 alone.

Which Delaware tribunal, one of the few of its kind left in the US, hears most corporate disputes?

It has jurisdiction over equity cases, the vast majority of which involve mergers and acquisitions.

In June 2018, Delaware became the first US state to legalise what?

It moved within weeks of the Supreme Court striking down the 1992 federal ban known as PASPA.

What is Delaware's official state sport?

The state has no major-league franchises, so many residents follow Philadelphia or Baltimore teams instead.

Which Japanese prefecture has been Delaware's 'sister state' since 1997?

Student exchanges were briefly paused after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the prefecture.