New Hampshire

The area’s inhabitants were Algonquian-speaking peoples, the largest groups being the Pennacook of the Merrimack Valley and the Abenaki. After contact with the English, disease, war, and migration sharply reduced their numbers, and by 1700 few Native Americans remained within the colony’s boundaries.⁠[1]

In 1622 the Council for New England granted the land to Gorges and Mason. In 1623 David Thomson and other English colonists settled near present-day Portsmouth, in what was then called the Province of Maine. Edward Hilton settled the Dover tract around 1623 and received title to it in 1631.⁠[1]

In 1629 Mason received a grant for the land, which he named New Hampshire. The Rev. John Wheelwright founded Exeter in 1638, and Hampton was established in 1639. In 1641 the four settlements came under the protection of Massachusetts.⁠[1]

In 1679 New Hampshire became a royal province under King Charles II. Its boundary disputes with Massachusetts were finally settled in 1740, and in 1741 it received its own governor, Benning Wentworth.⁠[1]

In 1774 Patriots routed the British garrison at Fort William and Mary in New Castle; the arms they seized were later used at Bunker Hill.⁠[1]

On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire adopted a provisional constitution, and about five months later it declared independence from Great Britain. The House of Representatives was created the day after the constitution was adopted; the first House had 87 members, each representing 100 families.⁠[1][2]

The Fifth Provincial Congress had opened in Exeter on December 21, 1775, and assigned a committee to draft a new constitution. This “Form of Government” replaced British rule and made New Hampshire the first American colony to enact a constitution of its own, before any other state and about six months before the Declaration of Independence.⁠[3]

The sloop Ranger, sailed by John Paul Jones in 1777–78, came from Portsmouth.⁠[1]

This ratification brought the number of approving states to the total required for the U.S. Constitution to take effect.⁠[1]

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the country’s first naval shipyard, was established in 1800.⁠[1]

Concord has been the capital since 1808; Portsmouth was the earlier capital.⁠[1]

In 1819 the legislature moved into the newly built State House, which cost $82,000. The same year the first power loom was installed in Manchester, launching its textile industry.⁠[2][1]

In 1846 Manchester became the state’s first incorporated city. By the end of the 19th century the Boston and Maine Railroad was the state’s largest business.⁠[1]

The first women legislators were elected to the House in 1921.⁠[2]

A 1942 constitutional amendment set the size of the House at no more than 400 and no fewer than 375 members.⁠[2]

From July 1 to 22, 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire; delegates from 44 nations attended, and the conference created the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution conceived at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, whose Articles entered into force in 1945 and which began operations on March 1, 1947; headquartered in Washington, it has 191 member countries and has been led by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva since October 2019.Open the full entry and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, known as the World Bank.⁠[4][5]

The state’s population roughly doubled between the 1960 and 2000 censuses. In the late 20th century textile manufacturing declined in the face of competition from lower-wage Southern states.⁠[1]

On April 26, 2021, the Census Bureau delivered the 2020 census apportionment results to the President. New Hampshire received 2 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, unchanged from before, with an average of 689,545 people per seat; on that basis the state has 4 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[6][7][8]

The current state constitution is the second oldest of the 50 states and may be revised by popular vote every 10 years. The governor is the chief executive; the legislature, called the General Court (General Court of New Hampshire), consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives; and the Supreme Court is the state’s highest and final court.⁠[1][9][10]

The General Court has 400 representatives and 24 senators, all elected every two years; the House is the largest state legislative body in the United States, and members are paid $200 per biennium. The governor and the members of the five-member Executive Council serve two-year terms.⁠[10][2]

As of November 2026 the governor is Kelly AyotteKelly AyotteKelly Ayotte is an American Republican politician and lawyer who has been governor of New Hampshire since January 2025 and was re-elected in November 2026. She previously served as New Hampshire attorney general and as a U.S. senator from the state.Open the full entry, who took office on January 9, 2025. Born on June 27, 1968, in Nashua, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1990 and a J.D. from Villanova University in 1993, served as New Hampshire attorney general from 2004 to 2009, and was a U.S. senator from January 3, 2011, to January 3, 2017.⁠[11]

The state has 10 counties, 13 municipalities, 221 towns, and 22 unincorporated places; most towns hold an annual town meeting.⁠[12][1]

In the Census Bureau’s 2010 state area measurements, New Hampshire has a total area of 9,349 square miles (24,214 sq km), of which 8,953 square miles (23,187 sq km) is land and 397 square miles (1,027 sq km) is water, comprising 328 square miles of inland and 69 square miles of territorial water.⁠[13]

The state is a slender triangle pointing north, 15 miles (24 km) wide in the north, 93 miles (150 km) at its widest, and 180 miles (290 km) long. Its Atlantic coastline of 13 miles (21 km) is the shortest of the Atlantic states, and four of the Isles of Shoals, about 9 miles offshore, belong to New Hampshire.⁠[1]

The highest point is Mount Washington, at 6,288 feet (1,918 m), also the highest peak in New England. Five major New England rivers, the ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, Merrimack, Piscataqua, Androscoggin, and Saco, rise in the state, and Lake Winnipesaukee, about 44,500 acres, is the largest of its roughly 1,300 lakes. Forests cover more than four-fifths of the land.⁠[12][1]

The climate is typical of New England, with long, cold winters and pleasantly warm summers. Concord averages about 46 °F (8 °C) for the year, about 21 °F (−6 °C) in January and 70 °F (21 °C) in July, and receives about 38 inches (97 cm) of precipitation a year, including 61 inches (155 cm) of snow; the White Mountains get roughly three times the snowfall of the coast. The growing season ranges from 150 days in the southeast to under 100 days in the far north.⁠[1]

The Census Bureau estimated the population at 1,415,342 on July 1, 2025, up 2.7% from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 1,377,573. Population density in 2020 was 153.9 people per square mile. In 2020–2024 there were 555,822 households, 40.6% of people aged 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher, and median household income was $99,031 (in 2024 dollars).⁠[14]

New Hampshire’s nominal GDP in 2025 was $125,523.2 million (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data).⁠[15]

Services dominate the economy, with tourism a major service industry; manufacturing, concentrated in the Merrimack Valley, includes computer and electronic products among its leading goods. Agriculture is limited by terrain, soil, and season, its main products being maple syrup, apples, and dairy goods, and the American lobster is the most valuable catch. Manchester, the only city with more than 100,000 residents, is the financial centre.⁠[1]

Public education began in 1647, while New Hampshire was part of Massachusetts, when towns of 50 or more families were required to teach reading and writing. The first public high school opened in 1830; a library built in Peterborough in 1833 is the oldest continuously tax-supported library in the United States; and the State Board of Education was established in 1919.⁠[1]

Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry in Hanover is an Ivy LeagueIvy LeagueThe Ivy League is an intercollegiate athletic conference comprising eight universities in the northeastern United States: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. It was formally established in 1954, with league competition beginning in the 1956–57 academic year. Its athletic framework emphasizes student status, academic standards, and financial aid based on need. The name is also commonly used collectively for the eight member institutions.Open the full entry school, and the University of New Hampshire is in Durham.⁠[1]

The state’s most common nickname is the “Granite State,” for its many granite quarries. The state motto, “Live Free or Die,” comes from words written by General John Stark on July 31, 1809, and was made official in 1945 (effective May 10, 1945); the same year the legislature adopted a state emblem featuring the Old Man of the Mountain.⁠[1][12][16]

The state seal is a circle 2 inches in diameter showing a frigate on the stocks and a sun rising over the horizon within a laurel border, with the date 1776 in the inscription. The state flag was formally adopted in 1909, before which various regimental flags were used, and it has changed only once, in 1931, when the seal was modified. It has a blue field with the state seal at the centre, showing the frigate Raleigh as if floating on water, surrounded by a laurel wreath with nine stars among the leaves.⁠[16][17]

The purple finch became the state bird in 1957, replacing the New Hampshire hen; the bill was sponsored by Representative Robert S. Monahan of Hanover and signed by Governor Lane Dwinell on April 25, 1957. The state flower is the purple lilac (1919), the state tree the white birch (1947), and the state animal the white-tailed deer (1983); ten songs are designated state songs, among them “Old New Hampshire” and “Live Free or Die.”⁠[18][16]

NH.gov: Official website: https://www.nh.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]

General Court of New Hampshire: Official website: https://gc.nh.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]