90 Fun Facts About Maine

What is the capital of Maine?

Portland was the original capital until 1832, and the state's Supreme Judicial Court still keeps its principal office there.

Maine is the only U.S. state that borders exactly how many other states?

New Hampshire is its only neighbour by land; the rest of its border is Canada and the Gulf of Maine.

Which two Canadian provinces border Maine?

It also shares a maritime border with Nova Scotia across the Gulf of Maine.

Maine became a state in 1820 as part of which famous political bargain?

Maine entered as a free state to balance Missouri's admission as a slave state the following year.

Before statehood, Maine was part of which state?

Mainers voted to secede from the Commonwealth and were admitted as a new state in 1820.

Maine was admitted to the Union as which number state?

The date was March 15, 1820; the state flag and seal adopted that year are its oldest official symbols.

What is Maine's nickname, a nod to its endless forests?

More than 80% of Maine is forested, the highest share of any U.S. state.

Roughly what share of Maine's total area is forested or unclaimed?

The Northwest Aroostook unorganized territory covers 2,668 square miles and had a population of ten.

The Old Town Canoe Company entered the market building wooden canoes covered in what material?

The historic maker is still based in the town of Old Town on the Penobscot River.

Which Maine town is the easternmost organized settlement in the United States?

Its West Quoddy Head lighthouse is the closest spot in the U.S. to Africa and Europe.

What is the highest mountain in Maine?

It rises to 5,269 feet in Baxter State Park and is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, which ends in Maine, passes through how many states in total?

It runs almost 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia; the newer International Appalachian Trail continues north from Maine.

What is Maine's largest lake, and the largest lying wholly inside the six-state region?

Lake Champlain is bigger but is shared among Vermont, New York and Quebec.

Acadia National Park is the only national park in which region?

It draws more than four million visitors a year, mostly to Mount Desert Island near Bar Harbor.

Acadia was the first national park created from what?

Wealthy summer residents including John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land and financed its carriage roads.

Before it took the name Acadia in 1929, what was the site called from 1919?

It began as Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916 and was the first national park east of the Mississippi.

Which Acadia summit is famed as the first place in the continental U.S. to see sunrise for part of the year?

It was called Green Mountain until 1918, when it was renamed for the French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac.

Portland Head Light, completed in 1791, holds what distinction?

George Washington directed the construction with a fund of $1,500; it stands in Cape Elizabeth.

What colour pattern makes the West Quoddy Head lighthouse instantly recognisable?

The current tower dates from 1858 and marks the easternmost point of the contiguous United States.

Which horror author, born in Portland in 1947, has long made Bangor his home?

His fictional Maine towns of Derry and Castle Rock recur across dozens of novels; for years he also owned Bangor radio stations.

Which fictional Maine town is terrorised by the shape-shifting entity in the novel 'It'?

Joyce Carol Oates called small-town life in fictitious Derry his 'characteristic subject'.

Which poet, author of 'Paul Revere's Ride', was born in Portland in 1807?

Portland was then still a district of Massachusetts; Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825.

In which Maine town is L.L.Bean headquartered?

The flagship store there is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and draws more than three million visitors annually.

L.L.Bean began in 1912 as a one-room operation selling a single product. What was it?

Also known as the duck boot and later the Bean Boot, it was sold by mail to nonresident hunting-licence holders.

Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine won fame for holding which position at Gettysburg?

His bayonet charge earned him the Medal of Honor; he later served four terms as governor and as president of Bowdoin College.

Which Mainer served as Abraham Lincoln's first vice president?

He served from 1861 to 1865 before being replaced on the ticket by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.

Which Maine senator delivered the 1950 'Declaration of Conscience' speech criticising Joseph McCarthy?

Born in Skowhegan, she was the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress and the first placed in nomination for president by a major party.

Maine's Edmund Muskie, later Secretary of State, championed which landmark environmental laws?

Born in Rumford, he ran for vice president with Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

Which USS Maine's sinking in 1898 precipitated the Spanish-American War?

Four U.S. Navy ships have carried the state's name; the 1898 explosion in Havana harbour is by far the most famous.

Maine is the largest U.S. producer of which seafood?

In 2025 the state's commercial harvesters earned $619 million, with lobster still the main focus.

Maine is the top U.S. producer of which fruit?

The tiny wild berries grow on barrens Down East; blueberry pie is the official state dessert.

Which Maine county is famous for its potato crops?

Potatoes bring the state more than $166 million a year.

What is Maine's official state treat, recognised in 2011?

South Portland bakers made a record 1,062-pound example that year; blueberry pie is the separate official state dessert.

Which bitter soft drink, flavoured with gentian root, is Maine's official state soft drink?

Created around 1876 as 'Moxie Nerve Food', it gave American English the word for spunk and determination.

Which large, long-haired 'gentle giant' is the state's official cat?

One myth claims the breed descends from Marie Antoinette's cats, shipped ahead of an escape that never happened.

What is Maine's official state tree?

Balsam fir, the only fir native to Maine, makes up ninety percent of the state's Christmas trees.

What does Maine's Latin state motto 'Dirigo' mean?

The North Star on the coat of arms alludes to it; the arms show a moose resting under a pine tree.

Which two animals or plants appear in the centre of Maine's coat of arms?

A farmer with a scythe and a sailor with an anchor flank the shield, representing agriculture and the sea.

Maine has the largest populations of which two large mammals in the contiguous United States?

The state's rivers also hold the last wild Atlantic salmon runs in the U.S.

What was Maine's record high temperature, set at North Bridgton in July 1911?

At the other extreme, Big Black River hit minus 50 °F in January 2009, tying the New England record.

The Old Sow, off Eastport, is the largest what in the Western Hemisphere?

It sits on the international boundary between Eastport and Canada's Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy.

What was the short-lived 1607 English settlement in Maine, founded the same year as Jamestown?

Its colonists went home after 14 months, but first built the Virginia of Sagadahoc, a pinnace that later crossed the Atlantic again.

Who led the first confirmed European settlement in Maine, on Saint Croix Island in 1604?

Samuel de Champlain was part of his party, and the French named the whole region Acadia.

The 'Maine Penny', found at a Native American dig site in 1954, is a coin from which country?

The 11th-century coin is the strongest evidence that Norse traders reached what is now Maine.

What food-related nickname does the 1838-39 US-British border confrontation over northern Maine have?

It ended without direct combat; the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 finally set the boundary.

In 1851 Maine led the nation by becoming the first state to do what?

Exceptions were allowed only for 'medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes'.

The Great Fire that destroyed most of Portland's commercial buildings broke out on which date in 1866?

It ignited during Independence Day celebrations and levelled half the city's churches and hundreds of homes.

Bar Harbor was known by what name until 1918?

It was renamed for the sand bar that appears at low tide leading across to Bar Island.

Which presidential family's summer estate, Walker's Point, is in Kennebunkport?

The town also hosts the Christmas Prelude festival each December.

Bangor's 31-foot fiberglass statue depicts which legendary figure?

It celebrates the city's lumber-boom past; sculptor Normand Martin made it in 1959.

Which Farmington teenager invented earmuffs in 1873?

He was 15, allergic to wool and frustrated while ice skating; his grandmother sewed the fur onto his wire loops.

Board-game pioneer Milton Bradley was born in which tiny Maine town?

Maine really does have towns named Paris, Norway and Mexico too; Bradley's company was bought by Hasbro in 1984.

Which Maine schoolgirl became a 'Goodwill Ambassador' after writing to Yuri Andropov in 1982?

Andropov invited her to visit the USSR; she died in a plane crash in 1985 aged 13.

Which painter moved to Prouts Neck, Maine, in 1883 and painted the sea from a carriage house?

His Maine seascapes are among the most famous American marine paintings.

Which Maine shipbuilder builds Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the U.S. Navy?

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, on Seavey's Island in Kittery, is Maine's other major naval yard.

In 2003, the Portland Sea Dogs became the Double-A affiliate of which MLB team?

They started in 1994 as a Florida Marlins affiliate and switched to the Red Sox system in 2003.

Bowdoin College in Brunswick counts which two literary giants among its 1825 graduates?

President Franklin Pierce was a Bowdoin man too; the college was chartered in 1794.

Which is the oldest incorporated town in Maine, dating to 1647?

It sits at the state's southern tip and is home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Which former governor donated the land for the state park around Maine's highest peak?

The park now covers more than 200,000 acres of permanently preserved wilderness.

Which writer climbed Maine's highest mountain in 1846 and later published 'The Maine Woods'?

The book came out in 1864 and describes lakes such as South Twin Lake.

Which bottled-water brand draws from western Maine's aquifers and springs?

L.L.Bean, IDEXX and Hannaford are among the few big companies still headquartered in the state.

What does the local expression 'from away' mean?

'Ayuh' means yes and 'upta camp' means heading to a rustic getaway.

Which factory canned baked beans on the Portland waterfront from 1913 to 2021?

Maine baked beans use native varieties like soldier and yellow-eye beans, sometimes cooked underground in a bean hole.

Roughly what share of American seaweed comes from Maine?

Farmers harvested more than a million pounds in 2022, and the industry keeps growing.

Which electoral system did Maine adopt by referendum in 2016 for its primaries and federal elections?

Maine is also one of only seven states with no lieutenant governor.

How many members sit in the Maine House of Representatives?

The Maine Senate has 35 seats; a two-thirds vote of both chambers can override the governor's veto.

From about 1880, Portland was the principal winter port for which country?

Its rail link and ice-free harbour did the job until Halifax was developed as a rival.

Which glacial erratic in Acadia was carried by ice from near Lucerne, 30 miles away?

Geologists worked out its origin by analysing the granite; it perches on the edge of Bubble Mountain.

What is Maine's northernmost point?

Roughly half of Maine's area lies on each side of the 45th parallel.

The FDR Bridge links Lubec to which New Brunswick spot, home of FDR's summer cottage?

Roosevelt Campobello International Park is jointly operated by the U.S. and Canada.

Maine's capital city ranks where among U.S. state capitals by population?

Its 2020 census count was 18,899, only the 12th-largest city in Maine.

At least how many Hallmark Christmas movies have been set in Maine?

Ogunquit and Camden both host Christmas by the Sea festivals, and Portland runs a Polar Express train.

What did the Eastern Abenaki call the peninsula of Maine's largest city, meaning 'great neck'?

Machigonne described the long finger of land jutting into Casco Bay. The peninsula shape still defines the modern street grid, which runs the length of the neck rather than across it.

Portland's city seal shows which mythical creature rising from ashes?

The bird commemorates recovery from four devastating fires. Few American cities have burned to the ground as often, and the seal turns that record into a boast.

Portland's Latin motto 'Resurgam' translates into English as what?

It is a defiant answer to the city's history of fires and sackings. Maine's state motto, by contrast, is a single word about leading.

In what year did Maine move its capital from Portland to Augusta?

Portland had held the title for only twelve years after statehood. Legislators wanted a capital closer to the geographic centre of the new state.

What did English colonists call the peninsula when they settled it as a fishing village in 1632?

The name survives in the bay the city still fishes. It lasted only a generation before the settlement was renamed again.

In 1658 the Massachusetts Bay Colony renamed the settlement after which English town?

The name stuck for well over a century, and a neighbouring town still carries it today. The modern city broke away from it in 1786.

The village on the peninsula was destroyed by the Abenaki in 1676 during which conflict?

The 1676 raid emptied the settlement entirely for several years. It was the second of the four destructions the city's seal celebrates surviving.

On 18 October 1775, which force bombarded and burned the town in reprisal during the American Revolution?

News of the shelling helped push the Continental Congress toward building a navy of its own. The town rebuilt and took its modern name eleven years later.

Portland, Maine draws its unfiltered drinking water from which lake?

The water is disinfected but never filtered, which is why the watershed is guarded so tightly. Only around fifty of roughly 13,000 US surface supplies qualify.

By act of the Maine Legislature in 1899, Portland absorbed which neighbouring city outright?

The annexation roughly doubled the city's land area and gave it the neighbourhoods north of Back Cove. The name survives on schools, streets and an oaks-lined avenue.

The Portland Company on Maine's waterfront manufactured more than six hundred of what in the 19th century?

The works supplied railroads across New England and Canada from a site now redeveloped for housing and shops. Its brick buildings still stand on Fore Street.

How cold did it get in Portland on 16 February 1943, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the city?

The same weather record book tops out at 103 °F. That is a swing of more than 140 degrees in a city that sits on the ocean.

What is Portland, Maine's long-standing nickname, earned from the trees once planted along its streets?

Elms once shaded almost every downtown block before Dutch elm disease thinned them. Bangor, upriver, is the one Mainers call the Queen City.

Maine has the highest percentage of which ancestry group of any US state?

Over a quarter of Lewiston, Waterville and Biddeford is Franco-American, and 3.93% of households speak French at home, more than Louisiana.

Which 1842 agreement fixed the frontier of the upper Saint John valley, once the 'Republic of Madawaska'?

The Acadian population of the valley still gives northern Maine a distinct French-speaking character.

Machias Seal Island, off the Downeast coast, is disputed between the United States and which country?

It is the only one of four disputed US-Canada maritime zones that actually contains dry land, claimed by the town of Cutler.

Which Amtrak service links Brunswick, Maine, to Boston's North Station?

It stops in Freeport and Portland along the way, feeding the coast's tourist towns.

Which Icelandic shipping company opened its US headquarters in Portland in 2013?

The move reflected Portland's revival as a working port, long after its era as Canada's winter outlet.