
Situated on the Atlantic Ocean and between New York City and Philadelphia, the state served as a prime defense hub during the Cold War., It officially joined the Union in December 1787 and became an important manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution and both World Wars. Named for the island of Jersey in the English Channel, New Jersey was among the original 13 colonies. It has world-class universities, leading technology and biological science firms and one fast turnpike., The home of native musical legends such as Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston, New Jersey is known for more than producing popular hit-makers. Among the best known private institutions: University of Miami. The University of Florida in Gainesville and Florida State University in Tallahassee have been rivaled in enrollment by the University of South Florida in Tampa, University of Central Florida in Orlando, and Florida International University in Miami. With several large cities, the state also has a sizable system of state universities and community colleges. It’s 792 miles by land from Pensacola in the far northwestern Panhandle to Key West at the end of the archipelago that stretches south of Miami, and along the way there is no natural elevation higher than 345 feet – on a ridge of the Panhandle. The state has 1,197 miles of coastline and a land mass of 53,630 square miles.

Tourism, which pays a sizable share of the state’s sales tax, also has enabled Florida to remain among the states without a personal income tax – adding a lure as the nation’s leading retirement haven. The state’s agriculture industry is also robust, with Florida groves producing many of the country's oranges and a winter vegetable industry that makes agriculture a year-round enterprise.

With millions of visitors each year to its beaches, major amusement parks centered around Orlando and cruise ships departing from ports on both coasts, tourism is a major contributor to Florida's gross domestic product. Another Henry – businessman and steamship owner Henry Plant – pushed rail lines down Florida's West Coast., Augustine, and the Breakers and Royal Poinciana in what became known as Palm Beach. In his path, he left grand hotels – the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Henry Flagler arrived aboard the first train to Key West, southernmost point of the U.S., in 1912, marking completion of his Florida East Coast Railway linking the East Coast from north to south. Florida attained statehood in 1845, yet not until a pair of railroad barons built lines down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the late 1800s and early 1900s did the state take off, spurring the phenomenal growth of what’s now the third-most populous state.,
