New Jersey

Before the arrival of Europeans the region was occupied by the Lenape, or Delaware, people.⁠[1][2]

In 1524 the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano became the first European to reach New Jersey. Almost a century later, in 1609, the English navigator Henry Hudson sent a party to explore Sandy Hook Bay.⁠[1]

Dutch and Swedish traders were the first to settle the region, and in 1660 the Dutch founded the first permanent European settlement at Bergen, now Jersey City.⁠[2][1]

England brought the colony under its rule in 1664, although the Dutch disputed this for the next nine years.⁠[1]

Newark was founded by Puritans in 1666 and chartered as a township in 1693.⁠[3]

In 1676 the province was divided into East Jersey, granted to Sir George Carteret, and West Jersey, granted to a group of Friends (Quakers). The division lasted until 1702, when the whole province reverted to the crown.⁠[1]

Until 1738 a single governor ruled both New Jersey and New York; after the separation Lewis Morris became the first governor of New Jersey.⁠[1]

From 1748 to 1756 the College of New JerseyPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry, now Princeton University, was located in Newark. Rutgers University was founded in 1766.⁠[3][4]

New Jersey adopted its first constitution in 1776, which granted suffrage to women; the legislature revoked that right in 1807.⁠[1]

The 1776 constitution created a two-house legislature, a General Assembly with three representatives from each county and a Legislative Council with one member from each county. The first session of the Legislature convened on August 27, 1776.⁠[5]

The state was deeply divided during the Revolution, with heavy Loyalist activity. More than 100 battles were fought in New Jersey, earning it the name “Crossroads of the Revolution.” On December 26, 1776, George Washington’s troops crossed the Delaware River from Pennsylvania in Durham boats, surprised German mercenaries at Trenton, and captured the town; a week later Washington defeated British forces under Colonel Charles Mawhood at Princeton.⁠[1]

The victories revived the army. Long Pond Ironworks and Batsto Iron Works, both founded in 1766, supplied munitions to the American troops, and in 1776 Newark served as a supply base for General Washington.⁠[1][3]

Princeton in 1783 and Trenton in 1784 each briefly served as the national capital.⁠[4][1]

A state resolution called for delegates to meet at Trenton, in Hunterdon County, on the second Tuesday in December. On December 18, 1787, the 38 delegates present ratified the U.S. Constitution by unanimous consent; “Highly critical of the Articles of Confederation,” they had acted quickly.⁠[6][7]

The instrument of ratification is a four-page manuscript engrossed on parchment containing the full text of the Constitution, the form of ratification, the original signatures of the 38 delegates, and an attestation by convention secretary Samuel W. Stockton; it is held by the New Jersey State Archives.⁠[6]

Trenton became the state capital in 1790; in the early years of statehood the state concentrated on rebuilding its economy after the war.⁠[1]

In 1804 Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought their duel at Weehawken.⁠[4]

Between the Revolutionary and Civil wars New Jersey industrialized, helped by canals and later railroads; the Camden and Amboy railroad, a forerunner of Conrail, shaped state politics in the 19th century. In 1824 the first U.S. ferry service opened between Hoboken and Manhattan, and Newark was incorporated as a city in 1836.⁠[1][4][3]

The constitution of 1844 made the governor directly elected to a single three-year term with veto power, enlarged the General Assembly to 60 members, and set the Senate at one member from each of the 19 counties.⁠[5]

In 1858 the first nearly complete dinosaur fossil was found at Haddonfield, and in 1869 the first intercollegiate football game was played in New Brunswick.⁠[4]

Thomas EdisonThomas EdisonThomas Edison (1847–1931) was an American inventor and entrepreneur who received 1,093 U.S. patents in his lifetime. He invented or improved the phonograph, the practical incandescent lamp and its supporting electric power system, motion picture camera and viewing equipment, and the alkaline storage battery, among other things, and established industrial research laboratories at Menlo Park and West Orange, and is regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern industrial research and development model.Open the full entry opened laboratories at Menlo Park in 1876 and invented a practical incandescent lamp in 1879; in 1883 Roselle became the first town in the United States lit by electricity, and in 1887 Edison moved his laboratories to West Orange.⁠[4]

Accommodating tax laws earned New Jersey the name “Mother of Trusts,” and by the early 1900s half of the country’s largest corporations had their headquarters there. Governor Woodrow Wilson (1911–13) signed laws regulating corporations, which were later repealed; in 1912 Wilson was elected President of the United States.⁠[1][4]

In 1918 a German U-boat sank six American ships off the New Jersey coast. The first Miss America Pageant was held in 1921, the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, the first U.S. drive-in movie theatre opened in Camden in 1933, and Albert Einstein made his home in New Jersey in 1935.⁠[4]

In 1942 German U-boats attacked shipping off the New Jersey coast, and in 1943 the battleship USS New Jersey entered active service. The state’s economy continued to grow through both world wars.⁠[4][1]

The current constitution, adopted in 1947, gave the governor broader veto powers and allowed two terms, organized state agencies into 20 principal departments, and set senators’ terms at four years and Assembly members’ at two.⁠[5][8]

The same year Larry Doby became the second African American to play Major League BaseballMLBMajor League Baseball (MLB) is a baseball league comprising 30 clubs in the United States and Canada.Open the full entry; the New Jersey Turnpike opened in 1951.⁠[4]

A state constitutional convention in 1966 expanded the Senate from 21 to 40 members and the Assembly from 60 to 80. In 1972 the state Supreme Court ordered single-member districts, and the state was reapportioned into 40 districts, each electing one senator and two Assembly members.⁠[5]

Major civil disturbances occurred in Newark in 1967.⁠[3]

A state master plan, first adopted in 1992 and later updated, sought to direct growth toward existing infrastructure, protect natural resources and open space, and reduce suburban sprawl and commuting difficulties. In 1993 Christine Todd Whitman became New Jersey’s first woman governor.⁠[1][1]

In 2006 the state constitution was amended to create the office of lieutenant governor, and the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the same legal rights and financial benefits as opposite-sex couples. In 2007 Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill eliminating the death penalty.⁠[4]

Sandy made landfall just south of Atlantic City at 8 p.m. on October 29, 2012, having been reclassified as post-tropical after 5 p.m. It produced major to record storm surge along the New Jersey coast and in Raritan Bay, beating the previous record at Sandy Hook, set by Hurricane Donna in 1960, by 3.2 feet; damage to homes and infrastructure in New Jersey was estimated in the billions of dollars.⁠[9]

On April 26, 2021, the Census Bureau delivered the 2020 census apportionment results to the President. New Jersey received 12 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, unchanged from before, with an average of 774,541 people per seat; on that basis the state has 14 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[10][11][12]

The state legislature, the New Jersey Legislature, has 40 senators and 80 members of the General Assembly, elected from 40 districts of substantially equal population, each choosing one senator and two Assembly members. Assembly members serve two-year terms and senators four-year terms (two years for the first term of each decade); each Legislature lasts two years, beginning at noon on the second Tuesday in January of even-numbered years, and both chambers sit in the State House in Trenton.⁠[13]

The governor is elected to a four-year term and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms; the state Supreme Court has seven justices, a chief justice and six associate justices.⁠[8]

As of November 2026 the governor is Mikie Sherrill, sworn in on January 20, 2026, in Newark as the state’s 57th governor, succeeding Phil Murphy; she is the second woman to lead the state. A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, she spent almost ten years on active duty, flying as a Sea King helicopter pilot, later served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, and represented New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District in Congress.⁠[14][15]

On January 20, 2026, Sherrill issued Executive Orders No. 1 and No. 2: the first declared an electricity affordability emergency, and the second declared a state of emergency to accelerate the development of new power generation.⁠[16]

In the Census Bureau’s 2010 state area measurements, New Jersey has a total area of 8,723 square miles (22,591 sq km), of which 7,354 square miles (19,047 sq km) is land and 1,368 square miles (3,544 sq km) is water, comprising 436 square miles of inland, 427 of coastal, and 506 of territorial water.⁠[17]

Its Atlantic oceanfront runs 126 miles from Sandy Hook to Cape May. The state has 21 counties.⁠[18]

The Census Bureau estimated the population at 9,548,215 on July 1, 2025, up 2.8% from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 9,289,024; the increase of 41,861 from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, ranked tenth among the states. Population density in 2020 was 1,263.0 people per square mile. In 2020–2024 there were 3,507,701 households, 23.9% of residents were foreign-born, 43.6% of people aged 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher, and median household income was $103,556 (in 2024 dollars).⁠[19][20]

Newark had 311,549 residents in 2020; other chief cities include Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth.⁠[3][2]

New Jersey’s nominal GDP in 2025 was $887,793.1 million (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data).⁠[21]

The economy is based primarily on manufacturing, and the state has many research facilities and laboratories; tourism, led by Atlantic City, is also important.⁠[2]

The state describes more than 9,900 farms covering about 750,000 acres; it ranks fifth in blueberries, third in cranberries, spinach, bell peppers, and peaches, and eighth in tomatoes.⁠[22]

The state nickname is “The Garden State,” credited to Abraham Browning of Camden, who used it in a speech on New Jersey Day, August 24, 1876, at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. In 1954 the legislature passed a bill to add “The Garden State” to licence plates; Governor Robert Meyner vetoed it, finding no official recognition of the slogan, but the legislature overrode the veto and the slogan soon appeared on the plates.⁠[23]

The state seal, designed by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere in 1777, contains five symbols: a helmet and horse’s head, Liberty, Ceres, a shield with three ploughs, and a scroll bearing the state motto, “Liberty and Prosperity.” The state flag was adopted in 1896; its official colour is buff, paired with dark blue (Jersey blue), the colours George Washington chose for New Jersey’s regiments in the Revolutionary War, and it bears the state seal.⁠[24]

The state bird is the eastern goldfinch, the state flower the violet, the state tree the red oak, the state animal the horse (1977), the state bug the honeybee (Bill A-671, signed June 20, 1974), and the state fruit the blueberry (2004).⁠[24]

NJ.gov: Official website: https://www.nj.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

Office of the Governor (Governor Mikie Sherrill): Official website: https://nj.gov/governor/ (opens in a new window).⁠[26]

New Jersey Legislature: Official website: https://njleg.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]