document_title: Damon Salvatore

question_text: when did damon and elena first get together

root

text: Damon Salvatore

text: Character development[edit]

text: Casting[edit]

text: Ian Somerhalder was cast as Damon Salvatore at the end of March 2009, six months before the premiere of the series.[1] The initial casting call for the character required an actor in his early- to mid-twenties to play a "darkly handsome, strong, charming, and smug vampire who can go from casual and playful to pure evil in less than a heartbeat."[2] Somerhalder had not read the books until filming began.[3]

tag: p

text: Television series[edit]

text: Background[edit]

text: Damon Salvatore is a vampire, turned by Katherine Pierce 145 years prior to the series' debut. He is the son of late Giuseppe Salvatore, ripper Lily Salvatore and older brother of Stefan Salvatore. He is portrayed as a charming, handsome and snarky person who loves tricking humans, and takes pleasure in feeding on them and killing them during the early episodes of the first season, unlike his brother, Stefan. Damon and Stefan bite humans to keep them alive since they're vampires.

text: Season 1[edit]

text: In the first season, Damon appears as the frightening older brother to Stefan Salvatore, and plays as the main antagonist for the first initial episodes with a hidden agenda.[4] Slowly, Damon begins to be kinder to the other characters, showing brief moments of compassion such as erasing Jeremy's memory of vampires and removing his "suffering"[4] so Jeremy gets his life back on track.[5] Damon apologizes for turning Vicki Donovan into a vampire and admits it was wrong.[6] Later at the Gilbert house, Elena returns home. Damon admits that he came to the town wanting to destroy it but actually found himself wanting to protect it after everything that happened at the Founder's Day celebrations and says he's not a hero and doesn't do good, saying it's not in him - those traits are reserved for Stefan, Elena and Bonnie. The two begin to kiss passionately before getting interrupted - it is later revealed that it wasn't Elena he kissed, but Katherine Pierce.[6] Later in the season, it also implies that he actually feels human emotions, such as pain and love, which helps the viewer sympathize toward his character in some situations. But mostly, he likes to take care of himself and do the dirty work, in his own sadistic ways.

text: Season 2[edit]

text: In season two, Katherine tells Damon that she never loved him and that it was always Stefan. Elena says something similar later, leaving Damon heartbroken. As an expression of his anger, pain, and hopelessness, he snaps Jeremy Gilbert's neck, not realizing he is wearing a ring which reverses damage done by supernatural creatures or forces. Jeremy survives because of the ring, but Damon's action incurs Elena's wrath and pain. When Bonnie also discovers it was his blood that enabled Caroline Forbes to become a vampire, the two declare their hatred for him, leaving angrier than ever.[7] After saving Elena with Stefan in episode 8 of season 2, Damon shows up in Elena's room with the vervain necklace that was ripped from her neck earlier in the episode. Before he gives it back, he tells Elena that he is in love with her, and because he is in love with her, he cannot be selfish with her. He also states that he doesn't deserve her, but that his brother does. He kisses her forehead and says he wishes she could remember this, but she can't. As the camera shows a close up of Damon's eye as he is compelling Elena to forget, a tear slips. Elena blinks and her vervain necklace is back around her neck, Damon is gone and her window is open with the curtains blowing. She had no recollection as to how the necklace was returned to her. In one episode, Damon joins Rose to find out why the originals are after Elena; after some time and clever banter, the two have sex, stating that they could rid themselves of emotion. However, when Rose, Damon's old friend who turned Katerina, suffers from a werewolf bite, he gives her the memory of her life prior to becoming a vampire, and helps her remember how good it felt to be able to walk and feel the sunlight, without it burning her. During this meaningful moment, Damon mercifully kills her, leaving him to mourn the death of his one of very few friends. Elena and Damon then begin to mend fences, and Elena gives him an affectionate hug to help comfort him after Rose's death. Damon begins showing another side of himself in small acts that help build what once was an impossible friendship between Elena and himself, after she clearly stated that he has lost her forever. After he spares Caroline's mother, Elena says how that was the person she was once friends with. And it's hard for Damon to accept that he has to change to have her in his life, which he explains to Andy Star, his compelled girlfriend a few more episodes in. Damon is bitten by Tyler the werewolf at the end of the season. Elena takes care of him, and right before he is cured by the blood of Klaus, the original hybrid, she gives him a "goodbye" kiss, because she was sure he was going to die. She even forgives him, telling him that she cares for him through grief-stricken tears.

text: Season 3[edit]

text: In the third season, Damon helps Elena in bringing his brother, Stefan, back to Mystic Falls after Stefan becomes Klaus' henchman. The arrangement transpired after a bargain for his blood that would cure Damon of the werewolf bite he had received from Tyler. At first, he is reluctant to involve Elena in the rescue attempts, employing Alaric Saltzman, Elena's guardian, instead as Klaus does not know that Elena is alive after the sacrifice which frees Klaus' hybrid side. However, Elena involves herself, desperate to find Stefan. Damon, though hesitant at first, is unable to refuse her because of his love for her. He also points out to her that she once turned back from finding Stefan since she knew Damon would be in danger, clearly showing that she also has feelings for him. He tells her that "when (he) drag(s) (his) brother from the edge to deliver him back to (her), (he) wants her to remember the things (she) felt while he was gone." When Stefan finally returns to Mystic Falls, his attitude is different from that of the first and second seasons. This causes a rift between Elena and Stefan whereas the relationship between Damon and Elena becomes closer and more intimate. A still loyal Elena, however, refuses to admit her feelings for Damon. In 'Dangerous Liaisons', Elena, frustrated with her feelings for him, tells Damon that his love for her may be a problem, and that this could be causing all their troubles. This incenses Damon, causing him to revert to the uncaring and reckless Damon seen in the previous seasons. The rocky relationship between the two continues until the sexual tension hits the fan and in a moment of heated passion, Elena – for the first time in the three seasons – kisses Damon of her own accord. This kiss finally causes Elena to admit that she loves both brothers and realize that she must ultimately make her choice as her own ancestress, Katherine Pierce, who turned the brothers, once did. In assessment of her feelings for Damon, she states this: "Damon just sort of snuck up on me. He got under my skin and no matter what I do, I can't shake him." In the season finale, a trip designed to get her to safety forces Elena to make her choice: to go to Damon and possibly see him one last time; or to go to Stefan and her friends and see them one last time. She chooses the latter when she calls Damon to tell him her decision. Damon, who is trying to stop Alaric, accepts what she says and she tells him that maybe if she had met Damon before she had met Stefan, her choice may have been different. This statement causes Damon to remember the first night he did meet Elena which was, in fact, the night her parents died - before she had met Stefan. Not wanting anyone to know he was in town and after giving her some advice about life and love, Damon compels her to forget. He remembers this as he fights Alaric and seems accepting of his death when Alaric, whose life line is tied to Elena's, suddenly collapses in his arms. Damon is grief-stricken, knowing that this means that Elena has also died and yells, "No! You are not dead!" A heartbroken Damon then goes to the hospital demanding to see Elena when the doctor, Meredith Fell, tells him that she gave Elena vampire blood. The last shot of the season finale episode shows Elena in transition.

text: Season 4[edit]

text: Damon starts season 4 at Elena's bedside after finding out about her dying with vampire blood in her system, causing her to start the transition to Vampire. Damon decides to firstly try to kill Rebekah with a White Oak Stake, yet she overpowers him. Rebekah is shot at through the Window and Damon escapes.

text: Later in part of a plan with the Sheriff and Meredith Fell, Damon uses Matt as bait to draw out the deputies and Pastor Young. After dispatching the deputies, Damon decides to take out some aggression on Matt and is about to snap his neck when stopped by the new vampire Elena. After Elena and Stefan go hunting on animals the next morning and Elena has her first feed on a deer she pukes the blood out. Meanwhile, it seems a new vampire hunter is in town. Elena goes to Damon for help, he pulls her with him to the bathroom and makes her drink his blood because he says "You need warm blood from the vein, so maybe this'll do the trick." He says it's personal and Elena wonders why but no answer was given. She drinks his blood but pukes hours later. When Stefan finds out Damon has feed Elena his blood he's very angry and hits Damon who just got in a fight with the vampire hunter.

text: Damon has decided to leave town, but through the early episodes of Season 4 seems to be looking for reasons to stay. Meredith Fell seems to be one who convinces him in 'The Rager' to stay to help Elena with her transition to Vampire. Indeed, a renewed conflict over ideology and what sort of Vampire Elena will become drives Damon and Stefan apart.

text: The Five, shows Damon tasking Stefan with learning more about the Vampire Hunter, Connor while Damon decides to accompany both Bonnie and Elena to College. This trip is ostensibly about teaching Elena the 'hunt': how to catch, feed and erase. After some initial problems, Elena has a Frat Party gets success and seems to enjoy herself causing friction with Bonnie. She leaves the party and later states that she doesn't want to be like Damon. In the next episode, she begins to believe that Stefan is lying to her and takes things into her own hands to kill the vampire hunter who is holding her brother, Matt, and April captive. She does, and begins to suffer from hallucinations at the end of the episode. After asking Stefan why he wants to cure Elena, Damon tells him that he loves Elena as a vampire or human.

text: In the episode 'We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes', Damon helps Elena in dealing with her hallucinations and saves her from committing suicide. He also helps uncover the mystery about the hunter's curse with the help of Bonnie and Professor Shane. At the end of the episode, he reveals the truth about the cure to Elena and explains how Stefan has been lying to her only to find this possible cure for vampirism. However, Elena breaks up with Stefan at the end of the episode after confessing her gradually growing feelings for Damon.

text: In the following episode "My Brother's Keeper", Elena tells Damon he is the reason she and Stefan broke up and at the end of the episode Damon and Elena finally have sex. After that it turns out Elena is sired with Damon, first they think it is the reason why Elena loves Damon, but in episode "We'll Always Have Bourbon Street" they found out that it only affects how you act, not how you feel. The sire-bond can only be broken when Damon leaves Elena and tells her to stop caring about him according to a witch in New Orleans named Nandi. In the following episode Damon goes with Elena to her family's lake house to help with Jeremy's Hunter instincts. In the episode Elena tries to act like a couple with Damon, but he refuses to even kiss her out of his guilt about the sire bond and worry that he's taking advantage of her. In the end of the episode Damon invokes the sire bond telling Elena to return to Mystic Falls while he trains Jeremy "O Come, All Ye Faithful". Elena kisses him goodbye.

text: In 'After School Special', Damon is at the Lake House training Jeremy, along with Matt Donovan. Klaus shows up and threatens Damon, wanting him to get Jeremy's mark completed earlier rather than later. Damon is shown to be reluctant, not wanting to hurt innocents for Elena's sake, but Klaus follows through with his plans regardless. Later in the episode Elena calls Damon and confesses she's in love with him and it's the 'most real thing she's ever felt in her entire life', in a moment of weakness Damon tells her to come see him. Afterward Damon is confronted with a bar of newly turned vampires for Jeremy to kill concedes that it's the quickest way, however balks when Klaus takes control and compels the newly turned vamps to kill Matt Donovan. In Catch Me If You Can Damon tells the boys to run since Jeremy isn't ready to take on all these vampires. Later when Elena arrives her and Damon argue over the killing of innocents and tells her to take Matt home while he and Jeremy take care of Klaus's newly turned vampires. However Kol shows up and has killed all the vampires, determined to stop them from finding the cure & waking Silas, and threatens Jeremy's life. Kol compels Damon to stake himself and later to kill Jeremy and to forget what Kol compelled him to do. Upon arriving back in Mystic Falls Damon begins to seek out Jeremy due to the compulsion, however when he sees him in the grill he realizes what Kol compelled him to do and tells Jeremy to run. Damon chases Jeremy throughout Mystic Falls and advises Jeremy that he is compelled and he needs to kill him. Jeremy shoots Damon in the head and when Damon awakens later starts cursing the youngest Gilbert, calling him stupid for not killing him. At the end of the episode Damon catches up with Jeremy Elena follows and urges Damon to fight it because "You love me and I love you", but he tells her that he can't, falls to his knees and urges Jeremy to kill him. Stefan shows up just in time to break Damon's neck and lock him up until they can take care of Kol. Damon spends the next episode locked up and bled dry by a jealous and snarky Stefan and engages in a conversation with Klaus about Caroline, Rebekah and Elena.

text: When the group goes to the mysterious island to find the Cure, Damon continues to be suspicious of Professor Shane. When Jeremy goes missing and Bonnie and Shane stay behind to try a locator spell, Damon stays to keep an eye on Shane. He later begins torturing Shane for information, but Shane starts analyzing Damon and telling him Elena will go back to Stefan once she's cured. Elena interrupts the torture session and Damon storms out and Elena follows. She tells Damon that she's sure her feelings for him are real and asks him to become human with her, however Damon tells her he has no desire to be human and that human/vampire relationships are doomed and stalks off. Afterward he is captured by Vaughn, another member of the Five, who tortures Damon and leads him around with a noose around his neck. Damon goes with Vaughn to the cavern close to where Silas is buried and eventually overpowers him, but not before Vaughn injures Rebekah. Elena and Stefan come across the injured Damon and Rebekah, Stefan stays while Elena rushes to find Jeremy. Damon urges Stefan to go get the cure for Elena, uncaring that there is only enough for one, because he wants it for the girl he loves. After Stefan leave Rebekah comments that Damon did something selfless and remarks that he will always love Elena. An exhausted Damon admits that he can't control everything and is tired.

text: After Katherine kills Jeremy in 'Down the Rabbit Hole' Damon stays behind determined to find the missing Bonnie, telling Stefan he can't come home without her. Eventually he finds Bonnie, hugging her in relief, but when the two arrive back in Mystic Falls in informs Stefan Bonnie has lost her mind. Elena, who had been in denial about Jeremy's death, comes into reality and demands Damon bring Jeremy's body downstairs. When Elena starts breaking down Stefan urges Damon to help her, indicating he should invoke the sire bond to take away her pain, however instead Damon tells Elena to shut off her emotions. In the next episode Damon begins trying to track Katherine in order to find the cure while Rebekah attempts to tag along. He finds an old friend from his past, Will, dying from a werewolf bite and kills him out of mercy. He arrives back home just in time to stop Elena from killing Caroline and takes her with to New York. While in NY Damon begins investigating Katherine's whereabouts and tries to keep that he's looking for the cure from Elena. Elena finds out and attempts to play him all the while Damon tells her and Rebekah about his time here in the 1970s. He admits that he had his emotions off and Lexi had come to help him on Stefan's behalf, however he tricks her into believing he fell in love with her only to leave her trapped on the roof during the day as revenge. He reveals that the reason he killed Lexi in season one was out of the guilt she stirred in him. Elena kisses Damon and attempts to steal Katherine's address out of his pocket, however Damon was aware she was trying to play him the entire time, and attempts to convince her to turn her emotions back on. Rebekah shows up and snaps his neck. He then calls Stefan and the brothers attempt to track down Elena. The decide to give up on the cure after Elena kills a waitress and threatens to kill people.

text: In 'Pictures of You' Damon, along with Stefan, decide they're going to try making Elena turn her emotions back on. The Salvatore brothers decide to take Elena to the prom, where Damon asks Elena why she told him she was in love with him and it's the most real thing she ever felt. Elena tells Damon that she only said it because of the sire bond and she feels nothing for him. However, later when Bonnie nearly kills Elena, she cries out for Damon to help her and he locks her up in the Salvatore basement. Damon then manipulates Elena's dreams in an attempt to remind how much she loves her friends in family, however when it doesn't work the Salvatore brothers (per Stefan's advice) try torturing Elena to get her to feel emotion. Elena however calls their bluff and attempts to kill herself, knowing Damon would never really hurt her and let her die. Damon realizes that Elena is smart and that torture will not work. After Katherine frees Elena Damon comes up with a plan, killing Matt in front of her (while he wore the Gilbert ring) and it works to get Elena's emotions back on. When Elena focuses her hate on Katherine Damon tells Elena where Katherine is, but tells her she shouldn't try and kill her. Damon admits he hates Katherine, however he knows once Elena kills her all her other emotions (grief & guilt) will all come flooding back in. Elena stakes Damon in the stomach when he attempts to stop her.

text: In the season finale 'Graduation', he tries to give the cure to Elena, but Elena refuses, which tells him that there is no more sire bond. He gets shot by Vaughn with a bullet laced with werewolf venom, and almost dies, but Klaus comes back to Mystic Falls and saves him. At the end of the episode, Elena proclaims her love for him stating that of all the decisions she has made choosing him will prove to be the worse one.

text: Season 5[edit]

text:
Not aware of Stefan's absence and Bonnie's death, Damon and Elena are having the time of their lives before Elena leaves for Whitmore college. College brings a lot of ups and downs to the on screen romance. Katherine begs Damon to protect her as she feels someone is after her, Damon by the help of Jeremy's vampire hunter instincts that Silas is possessing as Stefan. Silas gives Damon a crash course on why he looks like Stefan and tells where was he the whole summer, shocked to know about this he starts to search Stefan with the help of Stefan. Silas mind-controlled Elena to kill Damon but Elena resists it by thinking about her worries for Stefan. Both Elena and Damon, with the help of Sheriff Forbes, finds the safe where Stefan was drowning the whole summer, but only to find a dead body.
Due to both Elena and Katherine having same nightmare of Stefan all three, Damon, Elena and Katherine search for Stefan. Damon finally finds Stefan inside a hut where he is tied up in the chair and Qetsiyah makes a link of Stefan with Silas which fries Stefan's brain. Qetsiyah reveals to Damon that his relationship with Elena is doomed. Damon and Elena take Stefan where both of them finds out that he has memory loss and can't remember anything. Damon, to make Stefan remember about his past life, gives him his journals and spends quality time with him. Jeremy tells Damon that Bonnie is dead and Damon finally tells Elena about Bonnie. At Bonnie's funeral, Damon consoles Elena. Damon wants to help Silas so that Silas can do a spell to swap his life with Bonnie as Silas wants to die. Silas had seen Qetsiyah going to the party therefore both Damon and Silas goes to the ball party at Whitmore College. Silas needs Damon to kill Stefan, so that he can get back his power. Stefan, after waking up, tricked Damon and snapped his neck. At Salvatore's mansion they bring a desiccated Silas, to trade Silas's life with Bonnie he must become mortal(witch). The only way is by the cure so Elena and Damon calls Katherine who has the cure in her blood and after she arrives her blood is drained by Silas, but still Katherine lived. Amara is then awakened and revealed to be the mystic anchor. She then cures herself of her immortality by feeding off Silas.

text: Season 6[edit]

text: At the beginning of season 6, Damon is still trapped in the 1994 snapshot with Bonnie, forced to relive the same day over and over again. As the season progresses, the duo meet Kai Parker who's provides them with clues on how to get back home. In a truly selfless act, Bonnie manages to send Damon back while she remains in 1994 with Kai. Back home, things aren't as Damon expected them to be. Elena has compelled her memories of their time together and moved on. After a few initial set backs, Damon sets his mind to wooing her back.

text: As the season progresses, Elena falls for Damon all over again as they search for a way to free Bonnie and she becomes a large part of his support as his good friend Liz Forbes becomes more and more ill with cancer. Kai, who escaped the Prison World without Bonnie and merged with Luke, has absorbed some of Luke's qualities and is now moved by guilt to help free Bonnie. With his help, he, along with Damon, Elena, and Jeremy, are able to visit the Prison World and remind Bonnie that there is still magic residing in Qetsiyah's headstone in Nova Scotia.

text: After the death of Liz, Caroline is unable to bear the pain of losing her mother and chooses to turn off her humanity just as Bonnie returns. Bonnie brought back with her a strange video she'd caught while leaving a second Prison World she'd been moved to set in October 31, 1903. She shows the video to Damon and he recognizes his own mother, Lillian Salvatore, standing in the background. Troubled with the news that his mother is still alive after believing she'd been dead since 1858, Damon's informed by Kai that his mother was placed in a Prison World due to being a Ripper and the heinous number of deaths she'd caused. Unfortunately, Stefan is forced by Caroline to turn off his humanity and Kai, Bonnie, Damon, and Elena have to travel to Lily's 1903 Prison World to retrieve her and use her as a means to get Stefan back.

text: Damon is disturbed to learn when he gets to Lily that she has been trapped with other vampires and they allowed her to drink their portions of blood to stay alive. She is reluctant to leave without them, but Damon threatens to leave her behind if she doesn't go. Bonnie, Damon, and Elena leave with Lily, leaving Kai behind. When they return, Bonnie gives Damon a gift she'd gotten for him during her trip to Nova Scotia in the 1994 Prison World: the cure to vampirism. He struggles with whether or not to give it to Elena and provide her with the life she'd been robbed of.

text: After using Lily to get Stefan's humanity back and he is used to bring Caroline back, Lily is adamant about returning to her Prison World to retrieve what she considers to be her family. Damon confronts Bonnie, who had taken the Ascendant, and tells her that Lily is threatening to destroy the cure if he doesn't return with the means to get her "family" back. However, when he decides to let Bonnie destroy the Ascendant, he comes home to find that Lily had actually given the cure to Elena instead. He confesses that he was selfish and afraid of losing her but agrees that she should take it and that he'll take it with her.

text: Elena takes the cure and, unexpectedly, her memories return and she remembers when she'd traveled to Nova Scotia with Damon in search of the cure the first time, he'd told her that he used to miss being human, but, now, he couldn't imagine anything more miserable. She tells him he needs to think about it before making that decision and enlists Stefan to try to make sure Damon is certain of his choice to become human. Damon almost decides he'd rather stay a vampire until he witnesses an interaction between an older couple. Before Jo and Ric's wedding, he tells Elena he'd made his choice to live one lifetime with her. During the wedding, Kai shows up and stabs Jo before causing an explosion. The second to last episode ends with Elena lying unconscious on the ground.

text: In the last episode of the 6th season titled "I'm Thinking Of You All The While" Damon rushes Elena to the hospital after vampire blood fails to heal and awaken her. At the hospital the doctors tell him that she is medically healthy and they see no reason why she's not awake. Kai stumbles into the hospital injured. After consuming Lily's blood and killing himself, Kai's ability to siphon magic allowed him to become another Heretic (vampire with witch-like power), but he was soon bitten by a transforming Tyler, who had re-triggered his werewolf curse. Kai tells Damon and he's linked Elena's life to Bonnie's and as long as Bonnie lives, Elena will remain asleep but perfectly healthy. He also tells him that the spell is permanent and any attempt to find a loophole in the spell will result in the death of both Bonnie and Elena. Damon returns to the wedding to find Bonnie badly injured on the floor and Kai's reminder that letting Bonnie die will allow Elena to regain consciousness. Damon tells Bonnie he's sorry and leaves the room. Kai is irritated that his plan to torture Damon with an impossible choice had failed and, while he's distracted, Damon decapitates him from behind. Damon saves Bonnie's life and they go to the Salvatore boarding house to say their goodbyes to Elena, deciding that they will allow Bonnie to live her life and, when she dies, Elena will wake. Damon allows himself to enter Elena's subconscious to say his goodbye, dancing with her and telling her that he'll never be ready to live the next 60 years of his life without her. Stefan and Damon move the coffin holding Elena to a crypt and have Bonnie seal the door magically to keep away those seeking the Cure.

text: The season ends with the impression that quite a bit of time has passed. Mystic Falls is desolate and run down after the return of the other Heretics, Lily's "family". The last scene shows Damon looking torn standing on the clock tower he once sat on with Elena.

text: Relationships[edit]

text: At the start of season 1, Damon was a self-proclaimed loner,[8] often keeps to himself. Despite his initially antagonistic relationships with humans such as Alaric Saltzman and Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes, Caroline's mother. Damon gradually involved himself into the lives of many people in Mystic Falls by developing friendships with several humans. After spending time with Elena Gilbert, Damon becomes more empathetic and falls deeply, madly and passionately in love with her. He always puts her safety first before anyone else, even his.[9][10]

text: Damon's most prominent love, aside from Elena, was Rose. He met her while searching for Klaus and hooked up with her shortly after. Unfortunately Damon ticked off Jules, a werewolf, and she showed up on a full moon for revenge.

text: Stefan Salvatore[edit]

text: Damon has had a challenging relationship with his younger brother Stefan Salvatore for over a century. Before they became vampires, they both loved the vampire Katherine Pierce. Damon shows that he has nurtured a long-standing desire to reunite with Katherine throughout the first season. In the first season, we learn that it was Stefan who convinced Damon to feed and complete his transformation after Katherine turned both brothers into vampires.[11] Despite the feud between the Salvatore brothers, both Damon and Stefan always have each other's backs. Damon is always there for Stefan when it really matters, e.g., saving him from being tortured, helping him through withdrawal, and working with him to kill common enemies.[12] And Stefan will still give up his own life for Damon's survival. They both actually love each other but won't admit it, however:[13]

text: Elena Gilbert[edit]

text: After learning of Katherine's deceit, Damon starts to fall for, Elena. In general, Damon is fiercely protective of Elena and always puts her safety ahead of all else. Damon comes to Elena's rescue at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant when Elena is left stranded without a partner, and the two dance. In the episode "Rose", Damon confesses his love for her only to compel her to forget about it because he doesn't believe he is worthy of her. Throughout the third season his relationship with Elena grows; she learns to fully trust him, and they begin to rely on each other as a team. They share two passionate kisses, but Elena remains in denial about her feelings for him. After a long struggle, Elena still chooses Stefan much to Damon's dismay. In the following season, however, Elena realizes that her feelings for Damon cannot be denied any longer.  She and Stefan break up, and in the following episode Damon and Elena finally get together and have sex. Damon and Elena then both individually discover that Elena is sired to Damon, making Elena's feelings unfortunately known; however, Elena insists that her love for Damon is the most real thing that she's ever felt in her entire life. Damon remains doubtful, so in "O Come, All Ye Faithful" he sets her "free". In an interview before the season finale, Julie Plec stated that "This year, she's had a very traumatic roller coaster of life experience and it's changed her irrevocably—and at the center of it all was the diehard belief that she loved Damon, that she loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone." [14] In "Graduation", after the sire bond is broken and there remains no doubt about Elena's feelings, she reveals that she is in love with Damon.

text: Damon and Elena spend the next few months together, having the summer of their lives. When Elena has to leave for college, Damon stays behind in Mystic Falls and they have a functional long distance relationship. However, in the episode "Original Sin", Tessa, who is revealed to be Qetsiyah, tells Damon that the doppelgangers are fated to fall in love and that he is only a bump in the road that makes their story interesting. Damon refuses to believe in this and assures Elena that he will fight for her and their future together as she is his life.  It is later revealed that there is nothing fated about Stefan and Elena, but that they were merely drawn together by a spell.  After a tumultuous, back and forth relationship, Damon and Elena get back together at the end of the season, and they choose to sacrifice themselves together to save Stefan and Alaric and their other friends on the Other Side.  When Elena makes it back but Damon is trapped on the collapsing Other Side, Elena is devastated.  Damon says his last goodbye to Elena, telling her that she is by far the best thing that has ever happened to him, and that being loved by her is "the epitome of a fulfilled life", as Elena sobs inconsolably.  In season 6, Elena is unable to move on from Damon's death months later. She pretends to be happy, but she is secretly taking witch herbs to hallucinate Damon. When the herbs make her dangerous to humans, Elena decides to have Alaric compel away her memories of Damon, because she will never be able to move on otherwise.  When Damon returns, he attempts to help her remember their love story, but the compulsion will not break. Not remembering any of the good things about Damon, Elena still decides to give him another chance.  She slowly falls in love with him again, ultimately declaring that no matter whether she has memories of him or not, she always finds her way back to him. When Bonnie returns from the prison world, she gifts Damon with the cure for vampirism, knowing that he wanted to give it to Elena.  However, Damon is afraid that this will mean losing Elena. They discuss what a human life together would be like.  Elena initially rejects the cure, but Damon decides to take it with her so that they can have a human life together, including children.  Damon always wanted Elena to have the human life she always dreamed of. Elena takes the cure, which breaks the compulsion, and her memories of Damon return to her.  She recalls a memory from season 4, where Damon declares that there would be nothing more miserable than becoming human again.  Elena is afraid that Damon would regret taking the cure, so she challenges him to think it through carefully.  Stefan attempts to convince Damon that becoming human would be a bad decision, but Damon ultimately realizes that one lifetime with Elena is infinitely better than an immortal one without her, and confidently believes her to be his soulmate.  Damon and Elena excitedly anticipate the beginning of their human future together, until Kai puts Elena under a sleeping spell, tied to Bonnie's life.

text: Damon spends the next two seasons devoted to Elena, waiting for her to wake up.  He repeatedly states that he is miserable without her, and will spend the next 60 or so years unhappily until Bonnie dies. However, Damon is committed to staying true to Elena, and doing right by her. Elena is shown to be Damon's moral compass, and his guiding force throughout the two seasons.  When Damon is in the Phoenix Stone's version of hell, a vision of Stefan asks Damon "What would Elena do?" and this prompts Damon to forgive his mother, freeing him from hell.  The phoenix stone's influence remains, and Damon accidentally lights Elena's coffin on fire (or so he thinks).  Believing that he has unwittingly killed the love of his life, Damon becomes suicidal. When confronted with the hunter Rayna, Damon commands her to kill him because he is already in hell in a world without Elena. Enzo then reveals to Damon that Elena is still alive, renewing Damon's hope.  When Damon realizes that he is a potential danger to his friends and family because he does not believe he is good without Elena, he decides to desiccate himself next to her.  He write to Alaric that before Elena, he didn't know what it was like to be happy, fulfilled or complete, and that he doesn't want to continue living without that feeling. After Stefan wakes Damon from his desiccation, Damon continues to be devoted to his future with Elena. At the end of season 7, he is lured into a trap by a siren, hearing Elena's voice calling out to him.  When the siren takes control of Damon's mind in season 8, Damon spends a significant amount of time sleeping, seeking refuge in dreams of his memories of Elena.  When Sybil erases Elena from Damon's consciousness only to insert herself into their memories, Damon fights back, instinctively drawn back to Elena.  His love for her prevails, and he breaks the siren's mind control, regaining his memories of Elena. Julie Plec stated that "I think the only hope that he's holding on to is the idea of the two of them living in Tribeca in their brownstone and raising kids and having a life together as humans when this is all said and done." [15] After Stefan gives Damon the cure to vampirism, turning him into a human, and Bonnie unbreaks the spell on Elena, Damon and Elena finally reunite.  They begin their life together, getting married while Elena goes to medical school and becomes a doctor.  Eventually they return to Mystic Falls to grow old together, where they died together of old age.  We last see them walking hand in hand in the afterlife before reuniting with their respective families.

text: Alaric Zaltzman[edit]

text: Alaric is a vampire hunter looking to avenge his wife by killing the vampire that killed her. It is soon revealed that the vampire that Alaric is hunting is actually Damon. Before killing Alaric, he confesses that he didn't kill Isobel but turned her. Alaric is brought back to life by the Gilbert ring. The two remain enemies but work together on occasion. Eventually, the two become best friends and drinking buddies. Even after Alaric is turned into a vampire who kills other vampires, Damon does his best to ensure that they don't have to kill him. But with Elena's death, Alaric dies as well while Damon holds him. In the episode, "Memorial", it's clear that Damon still misses his friend as he talks to Alaric at his grave. Unknown to him, Alaric listens to the whole thing and even responds with "I miss you too, buddy". Damon's best friend.

text: Bonnie Bennett[edit]

text: Bonnie first saw Damon in Friday Night Bites when he dropped Caroline off at cheerleading practice. They first interacted in Haunted, when Damon learned that Bonnie had come into possession of the Bennett Talisman. He needed this to open the tomb which Katherine was locked in (for 145 years or so he believed). At first, Bonnie didn't want to have anything to do with Damon, saving his life only for Elena's sake and soon blaming him for Caroline's transition into a vampire. However, as time went on, Bonnie was put into situations where she had to work with Damon to achieve what they both wanted (albeit reluctantly at first). Their teamwork has often proved to be beneficial for the both of them. Their relationship has even come to a point where Damon is visibly worried for Bonnie's well-being and was devastated when he found out about her death. The improvement of their relationship is seen in Damon's efforts to help bring Bonnie back from the dead. However, their unique friendship hit a speed bump when Damon reverted to his old ways. Finally, they stood side by side with each other as The Other Side collapsed, holding each other's hand and at peace with what is to come for the both of them. They later discover that they are trapped in a 1994 Prison World. During that time, they start to bond and form a close alliance to take down Kai. Before sending Damon back home, she mentions that he's not exactly the last person she would wanna be stuck with. When Damon returns home, he does everything he can to find a way to bring Bonnie back, including a long road trip to Oregon to seek the Gemini Coven, and also compelling Alaric to steal the Ascendant from Jo. They finally reunite at the Salvatore Boarding House with a hug after Sheriff Forbes's funeral. It's shown that Damon and Bonnie genuinely care about each other and have made sacrifices for each other.


document_title: New England

question_text: what is the largest state in new england

question_tokens: what is the largest state in new england

text: New England

text: History[edit]

text: Eastern Algonquian peoples[edit]

text: The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages.[12] Prominent tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Pocumtucks, and Wampanoag.[12] Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine.[13] Their principal town was Norridgewock in Maine.[14]

text: The Penobscot lived along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Narragansetts and smaller tribes under Narragansett sovereignty lived in Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, including Block Island. The Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes lived in the Connecticut region. The Connecticut River Valley includes parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut and linked numerous tribes culturally, linguistically, and politically.[12]

text: As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.[12][15]

text: Colonial period[edit]

text: On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which comprised the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, Pilgrims from the Mayflower established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European settlement in New England.[16]

text: In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England".[17] The name was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620,[18] when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region.[19] As the first colonists arrived in Plymouth, they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact,[20] their first governing document.[21] The Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629[22][23] with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630.[24]

text: Massachusetts Puritans began to settle in Connecticut as early as 1633.[25] Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for heresy, led a group south, and founded Providence Plantation in the area that became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636.[26][27] At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were claimed and governed by Massachusetts.[28]

text: French and Indian Wars[edit]

text: Relationships between colonists and local Indian tribes alternated between peace and armed skirmishes, the bloodiest of which was the Pequot War in 1637 which resulted in the Mystic massacre.[29] On May 19, 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense, and gained some importance during King Philip's War.[30] From June 1675 through April 1678, King Philip's War pitted the colonists and their Indian allies against a widespread Indian uprising, resulting in killings and massacres on both sides.[31]

text: During the next 74 years, there were six colonial wars that took place primarily between New England and New France,[32] during which New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy and New France was allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy. Mainland Nova Scotia came under the control of New England after the Siege of Port Royal (1710), but both New Brunswick and most of Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France. The British eventually defeated the French in 1763, opening the Connecticut River Valley for British settlement into western New Hampshire and Vermont.

text: The New England Colonies were settled primarily by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. Later, New England's economy began to focus on crafts and trade, aided by the Puritan work ethic, in contrast to the Southern colonies which focused on agricultural production while importing finished goods from England.[33]

text: Dominion of New England[edit]

text: By 1686, King James II had become concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and their growing military power. He therefore established the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all of the New England colonies.[39] In 1688, the former Dutch colonies of New York, East New Jersey, and West New Jersey were added to the Dominion. The union was imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the region, and it was highly unpopular among the colonists.[40]

text: The Dominion significantly modified the charters of the colonies, including the appointment of Royal Governors to nearly all of them. There was an uneasy tension between the Royal Governors, their officers, and the elected governing bodies of the colonies. The governors wanted unlimited authority, and the different layers of locally elected officials would often resist them. In most cases, the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies, just as they had before the appointment of the governors.[41]

text: After the Glorious Revolution in 1689, Bostonians overthrew royal governor Sir Edmund Andros. They seized dominion officials and adherents to the Church of England during a popular and bloodless uprising.[42] These tensions eventually culminated in the American Revolution, boiling over with the outbreak of the War of American Independence in 1775. The first battles of the war were fought in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, later leading to the Siege of Boston by continental troops. In March 1776, British forces were compelled to retreat from Boston.

text: New England in the new nation[edit]

text: After the dissolution of the Dominion of New England, the colonies of New England ceased to function as a unified political unit but remained a defined cultural region. By 1784, all of the states in the region had taken steps towards the abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively.[43] The nickname "Yankeeland" was sometimes used to denote the New England area, especially among Southerners and British.[44]

text: Vermont was admitted to statehood in 1791 after settling a dispute with New York. The territory of Maine had been a part of Massachusetts, but it was granted statehood on March 15, 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise.[45] Today, New England is defined as the six states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.[5]

text: New England's economic growth relied heavily on trade with the British Empire,[46] and the region's merchants and politicians strongly opposed trade restrictions. As the United States and the United Kingdom fought the War of 1812, New England Federalists organized the Hartford Convention in the winter of 1814 to discuss the region's grievances concerning the war, and to propose changes to the Constitution to protect the region's interests and maintain its political power.[47] Radical delegates within the convention proposed the region's secession from the United States, but they were outnumbered by moderates who opposed the idea.[48]

text: Politically, the region often disagreed with the rest of the country.[49] Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the Federalist Party, and New England became the strongest bastion of the new Whig Party when the Second Party System began in the 1830s. The Whigs were usually dominant throughout New England, except in the more Democratic Maine and New Hampshire. Leading statesmen hailed from the region, including Daniel Webster.

text: Many notable literary and intellectual figures were New Englanders, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, George Bancroft, and William H. Prescott.[50]

text: Industrial Revolution[edit]

text: New England was key to the industrial revolution in the United States.[51] The Blackstone Valley running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution.[52] In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[53] The Manufactory was also considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine became centers of the textile industry following the innovations at Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[citation needed]

text: The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world.[54] From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world.[55][56]

text: The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in New England between 1815 and 1860 caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories. Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls moved from rural areas where there was no paid employment to work in the nearby mills, such as the famous Lowell Mill Girls. As the textile industry grew, immigration also grew. By the 1850s, immigrants began working in the mills, especially Irish and French Canadians.[57]

text: New England as a whole was the most industrialized part of the U.S. By 1850, the region accounted for well over a quarter of all manufacturing value in the country and over a third of its industrial workforce.[58] It was also the most literate and most educated region in the country.[58]

text: During the same period, New England and areas settled by New Englanders (upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, and the upper midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin) were the center of the strongest abolitionist and anti-slavery movements in the United States, coinciding with the Protestant Great Awakening in the region.[59] Abolitionists who demanded immediate emancipation such as William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier and Wendell Phillips had their base in the region. So too did anti-slavery politicians who wanted to limit the growth of slavery, such as John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, and John P. Hale. When the anti-slavery Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, all of New England, including areas that had previously been strongholds for both the Whig and the Democratic Parties, became strongly Republican. New England remained solidly Republican until Catholics began to mobilize behind the Democrats, especially in 1928, and up until the Republican party realigned its politics in a shift known as the Southern strategy. This led to the end of "Yankee Republicanism" and began New England's relatively swift transition into a consistently Democratic stronghold.[60]

text: 20th century and beyond[edit]

text: The flow of immigrants continued at a steady pace from the 1840s until cut off by World War I. The largest numbers came from Ireland and Britain before 1890, and after that from Quebec, Italy and Southern Europe. The immigrants filled the ranks of factory workers, craftsmen and unskilled laborers. The Irish assumed a larger and larger role in the Democratic Parts in the cities and statewide, while the rural areas remained Republican. Yankees left the farms, which never were highly productive; many headed west, while others became professionals and businessmen in the New England cities.

text: The Great Depression in the United States of the 1930s hit the region hard, with high unemployment in the industrial cities. The Democrats appealed to factory workers and especially Catholics, pulling them into the New Deal coalition and making the once-Republican region into one that was closely divided. However the enormous spending on munitions, ships, electronics, and uniforms during World War II caused a burst of prosperity in every sector.

text: The region lost most of its factories starting with the loss of textiles in the 1930s and getting worse after 1960. The New England economy was radically transformed after World War II. The factory economy practically disappeared. Like urban centers in the Rust Belt, once-bustling New England communities fell into economic decay following the flight of the region's industrial base. The textile mills one by one went out of business from the 1920s to the 1970s. For example, the Crompton Company, after 178 years in business, went bankrupt in 1984, costing the jobs of 2,450 workers in five states. The major reasons were cheap imports, the strong dollar, declining exports, and a failure to diversify.[61] Shoes followed.

text: What remains is very high technology manufacturing, such as jet engines, nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals, robotics, scientific instruments, and medical devices. MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields, and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly.[62] By the 21st century the region had become famous for its leadership roles in the fields of education, medicine and medical research, high-technology, finance, and tourism.[63]

text: Some industrial areas were slow in adjusting to the new service economy. In 2000, New England had two of the ten poorest cities (by percentage living below the poverty line) in the U.S.: the state capitals of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut.[64] They were no longer in the bottom ten by 2010; Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remain among the ten wealthiest states in the United States in terms of median household income and per capita income.[65]

text: Cities and urban areas[edit]

text: Metropolitan areas[edit]

text: The following are metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau.

text:
Bangor, ME MSA
Barnstable Town, MA MSA (Greater Boston)
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA (Greater Boston)
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)
Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT MSA
Lewiston-Auburn, ME MSA
Manchester-Nashua, NH MSA
New Haven-Milford, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)
Norwich-New London, CT MSA
Pittsfield, MA MSA
Portland-South Portland, ME MSA
Springfield, MA MSA
Providence-Warwick, RI-MA MSA (Greater Boston)
Worcester, MA-CT MSA (Greater Boston)

tag: ul

text: State capitals[edit]

text:
Hartford, Connecticut
Augusta, Maine
Boston, Massachusetts
Concord, New Hampshire
Providence, Rhode Island
Montpelier, Vermont

text: Geography[edit]

text: The states of New England have a combined area of 71,991.8 square miles (186,458 km2), making the region slightly larger than the state of Washington and larger than England.[66][67] Maine alone constitutes nearly one-half of the total area of New England, yet is only the 39th-largest state, slightly smaller than Indiana. The remaining states are among the smallest in the U.S., including the smallest state—Rhode Island.

text: Geology[edit]

text: New England's long rolling hills, mountains, and jagged coastline are glacial landforms resulting from the retreat of ice sheets approximately 18,000 years ago, during the last glacial period.[68][69]

text: New England is geologically a part of the New England province, an exotic terrane region consisting of the Appalachian Mountains, the New England highlands, and the seaboard lowlands.[70] The Appalachian Mountains roughly follow the border between New England and New York. The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the Green Mountains in Vermont, as well as the Taconic Mountains, form a spine of Precambrian rock.[71]

text: The Appalachians extend northwards into New Hampshire as the White Mountains, and then into Maine and Canada. Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the highest peak in the Northeast, although it is not among the ten highest peaks in the eastern United States.[72] It is the site of the second highest recorded wind speed on Earth,[73][74] and has the reputation of having the world's most severe weather.[75][76]

text: The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, marshes and wetlands, and sandy beaches.[69] Important valleys in the region include the Connecticut River Valley and the Merrimack Valley.[69] The longest river is the Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 655 km (407 mi), emptying into Long Island Sound, roughly bisecting the region. Lake Champlain, which forms part of the border between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by Moosehead Lake in Maine and Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.[69]

text: Climate[edit]

text: The climate of New England varies greatly across its 500 miles (800 km) span from northern Maine to southern Connecticut:

text: Maine, northern and central New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts have a humid continental climate (Dfb in Köppen climate classification). In this region the winters are long, cold, and heavy snow is common (most locations receive 60 to 120 inches (1,500 to 3,000 mm) of snow annually in this region). The summer's months are moderately warm, though summer is rather short and rainfall is spread through the year.

text: In central and eastern Massachusetts, southeastern New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and most of Connecticut, the same humid continental prevails (Dfa), though summers are warm to hot, winters are shorter, and there is less snowfall (especially in the coastal areas where it is often warmer).

text: Southern and coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone from the cold continental climates of the north to the milder temperate/subtropical climates to the south. The frost free season is greater than 180 days across far southern/coastal Connecticut, coastal Rhode Island, and the islands (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard). Winters also tend to be much sunnier in southern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island compared to the rest of New England.[77]

text: Demographics[edit]

text: In 2010, New England had a population of 14,444,865, a growth of 3.8% from 2000.[78] This grew to an estimated 14,727,584 by 2015.[79] Massachusetts is the most populous state with 6,794,422 residents, while Vermont is the least populous state with 626,042 residents.[78] Boston is by far the region's most populous city and metropolitan area.

text: Although a great disparity exists between New England's northern and southern portions, the region's average population density is 234.93 inhabitants/sq mi (90.7/km²). New England has a significantly higher population density than that of the U.S. as a whole (79.56/sq mi), or even just the contiguous 48 states (94.48/sq mi). Three-quarters of the population of New England, and most of the major cities, are in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The combined population density of these states is 786.83/sq mi, compared to northern New England's 63.56/sq mi (2000 census).

text: According to the 2006–08 American Community Survey, 48.7% of New Englanders were male and 51.3% were female. Approximately 22.4% of the population were under 18 years of age; 13.5% were over 65 years of age. The six states of New England have the lowest birth rate in the U.S.[80]

text: White Americans make up the majority of New England's population at 83.4% of the total population, Hispanic and Latino Americans are New England's largest minority, and they are the second-largest group in the region behind non-Hispanic European Americans. As of 2014, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 10.2% of New England's population. Connecticut had the highest proportion at 13.9%, while Vermont had the lowest at 1.3%. There were nearly 1.5 million Hispanic and Latino individuals reported in New England in 2014. Puerto Ricans were the most numerous of the Hispanic and Latino subgroups. Over 660,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New England in 2014, forming 4.5% of the population. The Dominican population is over 200,000, and the Mexican and Guatemalan populations are each over 100,000.[81] Americans of Cuban descent are scant in number; there were roughly 26,000 Cuban Americans in the region in 2014. People of all other Hispanic and Latino ancestries, including Salvadoran, Colombian, and Bolivian, formed 2.5% of New England's population, and numbered over 361,000 combined.[81]

text: According to the 2014 American Community Survey, the top ten largest reported European ancestries were the following:[82]

text:
Irish: 19.2% (2.8 million)
Italian: 13.6% (2.0 million)
French and French Canadian: 13.1% (1.9 million)
English: 11.9% (1.7 million)[83]
German: 7.4% (1.1 million)
Polish: 4.9% (roughly 715,000)
Portuguese: 3.2% (467,000)
Scottish: 2.5% (370,000)
Russian: 1.4% (206,000)
Greek: 1.0% (152,000)

text: English is, by far, the most common language spoken at home. Approximately 81.3% of all residents (11.3 million people) over the age of five spoke only English at home. Roughly 1,085,000 people (7.8% of the population) spoke Spanish at home, and roughly 970,000 people (7.0% of the population) spoke other Indo-European languages at home. Over 403,000 people (2.9% of the population) spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language at home.[84] Slightly fewer (about 1%) spoke French at home,[85] although this figure is above 20% in northern New England, which borders francophone Québec.[citation needed] Roughly 99,000 people (0.7% of the population) spoke languages other than these at home.[84]

text: As of 2014, approximately 87% of New England's inhabitants were born in the U.S., while over 12% were foreign-born.[86] 35.8% of foreign-born residents were born in Latin America, 28.6% were born in Asia, 22.9% were born in Europe, and 8.5% were born in Africa.[87]

text: Southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The region includes three of the four most densely populated states in the U.S.; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

text: Greater Boston, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 4.8 million,[88] while over half the population of New England falls inside Boston's Combined Statistical Area of over 8.2 million.[89]

text: Largest cities[edit]

text: The most populous cities as of the Census Bureau's 2014 estimates were (metropolitan areas in parentheses):[88][90]

text:
Boston, Massachusetts: 655,884 (4,739,385)
 Worcester, Massachusetts: 183,016 (931,802)
 Providence, Rhode Island: 179,154 (1,609,533)
 Springfield, Massachusetts: 153,991 (630,672)
 Bridgeport, Connecticut: 147,612 (945,816)
 New Haven, Connecticut: 130,282 (861,238)
 Stamford, Connecticut: 128,278 (part of Bridgeport's MSA)
 Hartford, Connecticut: 124,705 (1,213,225)
 Manchester, New Hampshire: 110,448 (405,339)
 Lowell, Massachusetts: 109,945 (part of Greater Boston)

tag: ol

text: During the 20th century, urban expansion in regions surrounding New York City has become an important economic influence on neighboring Connecticut, parts of which belong to the New York metropolitan area. The U.S. Census Bureau groups Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties in western Connecticut together with New York City, and other parts of New York and New Jersey as a combined statistical area.[91]

text:
Major Cities of New England

1. Boston, Massachusetts

2. Worcester, Massachusetts

3. Providence, Rhode Island

4. Springfield, Massachusetts

5. Bridgeport, Connecticut

6. New Haven, Connecticut

7. Stamford, Connecticut

8. Hartford, Connecticut

9. Manchester, New Hampshire

10. Lowell, Massachusetts

text: Economy[edit]

text: Overview[edit]

text: Several factors combine to make the New England economy unique. The region is distant from the geographic center of the country, and is a relatively small region, and relatively densely populated. It historically has been an important center of industrial manufacturing and a supplier of natural resource products, such as granite, lobster, and codfish. New England exports food products, ranging from fish to lobster, cranberries, Maine potatoes, and maple syrup. The service industry is important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, plus architectural, building, and construction services. The U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire U.S. economy.[92]

text: In the first half of the 20th century, the region underwent a long period of deindustrialization as traditional manufacturing companies relocated to the Midwest, with textile and furniture manufacturing migrating to the South. In the mid-to-late 20th century, an increasing portion of the regional economy included high technology (including computer and electronic equipment manufacturing), military defense industry, finance and insurance services, as well as education and health services.

text: As of 2015, the GDP of New England was $953.9 billion.[93]

text: Exports[edit]

text: Exports consist mostly of industrial products, including specialized machines and weaponry (aircraft and missiles especially), built by the region's educated workforce. About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as computers and electronic and electrical equipment. This, when combined with instruments, chemicals, and transportation equipment, makes up about three-quarters of the region's exports. Granite is quarried at Barre, Vermont,[94] guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts and Saco, Maine, boats at Groton, Connecticut and Bath, Maine, and hand tools at Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Insurance is a driving force in and around Hartford, Connecticut.[92]

text: Agriculture[edit]

text: Agriculture is limited by the area's rocky soil, cool climate, and small area. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for aquaculture,[95] and has abundant potato fields in its northeast part. Vermont is fifteenth for dairy products,[96] and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively.[97][98] Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts' Cape Cod-Plymouth-South Shore area, and blueberries in Maine.

text: Energy[edit]

text: Three of the six New England states are among the country's highest consumers of nuclear power: Vermont (first, 73.7%), Connecticut (fourth, 48.9%), and New Hampshire (sixth, 46%).[99] The region is mostly energy-efficient compared to the U.S. at large, with every state but Maine ranking within the ten most energy-efficient states;[100] every state in New England also ranks within the ten most expensive states for electricity prices.[101]

text: Employment[edit]

text:
Unemployment rates in New England

Employment area
October 2010
October 2011
October 2012
October 2013
December 2014
December 2015[102]
December 2016[103]
Net change

United States
9.7
9.0
7.9
7.2
5.6
5.0
4.7
−5.0

New England
8.3
7.6
7.4
7.1
5.4
4.3
3.5
−4.7

Connecticut
9.1
8.7
9.0
7.6
6.4
5.2
4.4
−4.7

Maine
7.6
7.3
7.4
6.5
5.5
4.0
3.8
−3.8

Massachusetts
8.3
7.3
6.6
7.2
5.5
4.7
2.8
−5.5

New Hampshire
5.7
5.3
5.7
5.2
4.0
3.1
2.6
−3.1

Rhode Island
11.5
10.4
10.4
9.4
6.8
5.1
5.0
−6.5

Vermont
5.9
5.6
5.5
4.4
4.2
3.6
3.1
−2.8

tag: table

text: As of January 2017, employment is stronger in New England than in the rest of the United States. During the Great Recession, unemployment rates ballooned across New England as elsewhere; however, in the years that followed, these rates declined steadily, with New Hampshire and Massachusetts having the lowest unemployment rates in the country, respectively. The most extreme swing was in Rhode Island, which had an unemployment rate above 10% following the recession, but which saw this rate decline by over 6% in six years.

text: As of December 2016, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest unemployment rate, 2.1%, was Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont; the MSA with the highest rate, 4.9%, was Waterbury, Connecticut.[104]

text: Government[edit]

text: Town meetings[edit]

text: New England town meetings were derived from meetings held by church elders, and are still an integral part of government in many New England towns. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues with other members of the community and vote on them. This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the U.S. today, and the strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America:

text:
“
New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.[105]
”

text: By contrast, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55 that, regardless of the assembly, "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."[106] The use and effectiveness of town meetings is still discussed by scholars, as well as the possible application of the format to other regions and countries.[107]

text: Politics[edit]

text: Elections[edit]

text: State and national elected officials in New England recently have been elected mainly from the Democratic Party.[108] The region is generally considered to be the most liberal in the United States, with more New Englanders identifying as liberals than Americans elsewhere. In 2010, four of six of the New England states were polled as the most liberal in the United States; Maine and New Hampshire also were more liberal than the bottom-half.[109]

text: The six states of New England voted for the Democratic Presidential nominee in the 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections, and every New England state other than New Hampshire voted for Al Gore in the presidential election of 2000. In the 113th Congress the House delegations from all six states of New England were all Democratic. New England is home to the only two independents currently serving in the U.S. Senate, both of whom caucus with the Democratic Party: Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist,[110][111] representing Vermont; and Angus King, an Independent representing Maine.

text: In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried all six New England states by 9 percentage points or more.[112] He carried every county in New England except for Piscataquis County, Maine, which he lost by 4% to Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Pursuant to the reapportionment following the 2010 census, New England collectively has 33 electoral votes.

text: The following table presents the vote percentage for the popular-vote winner for each New England state, New England as a whole, and the United States as a whole, in each presidential election from 1900 to 2016, with the vote percentage for the Republican candidate shaded in red and the vote percentage for the Democratic candidate shaded in blue:

text:
Year
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
New England
United States

2016
54.0%
48.0%
61.0%
47.6%
54.9%
61.1%
55.6%
48.2%

2012
58.1%
56.3%
60.7%
52.0%
62.7%
66.6%
59.1%
51.1%

2008
60.6%
57.7%
61.8%
54.1%
62.9%
67.5%
60.6%
52.9%

2004
54.3%
53.6%
61.9%
50.2%
59.4%
58.9%
57.7%
50.7%

2000
55.9%
49.1%
59.8%
48.1%
61.0%
50.6%
56.1%
48.4%

1996
52.8%
51.6%
61.5%
49.3%
59.7%
53.4%
56.8%
49.2%

1992
42.2%
38.8%
47.5%
38.9%
47.0%
46.1%
44.4%
43.0%

1988
52.0%
55.3%
53.2%
62.5%
55.6%
51.1%
49.5%
53.4%

1984
60.7%
60.8%
51.2%
68.7%
51.7%
57.9%
56.2%
58.8%

1980
48.2%
45.6%
41.9%
57.7%
47.7%
44.4%
44.7%
50.8%

1976
52.1%
48.9%
56.1%
54.7%
55.4%
54.3%
51.7%
50.1%

1972
58.6%
61.5%
54.2%
64.0%
53.0%
62.7%
52.5%
60.7%

1968
49.5%
55.3%
63.0%
52.1%
64.0%
52.8%
56.1%
43.4%

1964
67.8%
68.8%
76.2%
63.9%
80.9%
66.3%
72.8%
61.1%

1960
53.7%
57.0%
60.2%
53.4%
63.6%
58.6%
56.0%
49.7%

1956
63.7%
70.9%
59.3%
66.1%
58.3%
72.2%
62.0%
57.4%

1952
55.7%
66.0%
54.2%
60.9%
50.9%
71.5%
56.1%
55.2%

1948
49.5%
56.7%
54.7%
52.4%
57.6%
61.5%
51.5%
49.6%

1944
52.3%
52.4%
52.8%
52.1%
58.6%
57.1%
52.4%
53.4%

1940
53.4%
51.1%
53.1%
53.2%
56.7%
54.8%
52.8%
54.7%

1936
55.3%
55.5%
51.2%
49.7%
53.1%
56.4%
50.9%
60.8%

1932
48.5%
55.8%
50.6%
50.4%
55.1%
57.7%
49.1%
57.4%

1928
53.6%
68.6%
50.2%
58.7%
50.2%
66.9%
53.2%
58.2%

1924
61.5%
72.0%
62.3%
59.8%
59.6%
78.2%
63.3%
54.0%

1920
62.7%
68.9%
68.5%
59.8%
64.0%
75.8%
66.7%
60.3%

1916
49.8%
51.0%
50.5%
49.1%
51.1%
62.4%
51.1%
49.2%

1912
39.2%
39.4%
35.5%
39.5%
39.0%
37.1%
36.6%
41.8%

1908
59.4%
63.0%
58.2%
59.3%
60.8%
75.1%
60.2%
51.6%

1904
58.1%
67.4%
57.9%
60.1%
60.6%
78.0%
60.4%
56.4%

1900
56.9%
61.9%
57.6%
59.3%
59.7%
75.7%
59.4%
51.6%

text: Political party strength[edit]

text: Judging purely by party registration rather than voting patterns, New England today is one of the most Democratic regions in the U.S.[113][114][115] According to Gallup, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont are "solidly Democratic", Maine "leans Democratic", and New Hampshire is a swing state.[116] Though New England is today considered a Democratic Party stronghold, much of the region was staunchly Republican before the mid-twentieth century. This changed in the late 20th century, in large part due to demographic shifts[117] and the Republican Party's adoption of socially conservative platforms as part of their strategic shift towards the South.[60] For example, Vermont voted Republican in every presidential election but one from 1856 through 1988, and has voted Democratic every election since. Maine and Vermont were the only two states in the nation to vote against Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt all four times he ran for president. Republicans in New England are today considered by both liberals and conservatives to be more moderate (socially liberal) compared to Republicans in other parts of the U.S.[118]

text:
State
Governor
Senior U.S. Senator
Junior U.S. Senator
U.S. House Delegation
Upper House Majority
Lower House Majority

CT
D. Malloy
R. Blumenthal
C. Murphy
Democratic 5–0
Tied 18–18
Democratic 80–71

ME
P. LePage
S. Collins
A. King[†]
Split 1–1
Republican 18–17
Democratic 76–72–2

MA
C. Baker
E. Warren
E. Markey
Democratic 9–0
Democratic 34–6
Democratic 125–35

NH
C. Sununu
J. Shaheen
M. Hassan
Democratic 2-0
Republican 14–10
Republican 226–174

RI
G. Raimondo
J. Reed
S. Whitehouse
Democratic 2–0
Democratic 33–5
Democratic 64–10–1

VT
P. Scott
P. Leahy
B. Sanders[†]
Democratic 1–0
Democratic 21–7–2
Democratic 83–53–7–7

text: New Hampshire primary[edit]

text: Historically, the New Hampshire primary has been the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years. Held in the state of New Hampshire, it usually marks the beginning of the U.S. presidential election process. Even though few delegates are chosen from New Hampshire, the primary has always been pivotal to both New England and American politics. One college in particular, Saint Anselm College, has been home to numerous national presidential debates and visits by candidates to its campus.[119]

text: Education[edit]

text: Colleges and universities[edit]

text: New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States and the world. Harvard College was the first such institution, founded in 1636 at Cambridge, Massachusetts to train preachers. Yale University was founded in Saybrook, Connecticut in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (PhD) degree in 1861. Yale moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1718, where it has remained to the present day.

text: Brown University was the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations, and is the seventh oldest U.S. institution of higher learning. It was founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1764. Dartmouth College was founded five years later in Hanover, New Hampshire with the mission of educating the local American Indian population as well as English youth. The University of Vermont, the fifth oldest university in New England, was founded in 1791, the same year that Vermont joined the Union.

text: In addition to four out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), four of the original Seven Sisters, the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region.

text: Private and independent secondary schools[edit]

text: At the pre-college level, New England is home to a number of American independent schools (also known as private schools). The concept of the elite "New England prep school" (preparatory school) and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.[120]

text: Public education[edit]

text: New England is home to some of the oldest public schools in the nation. Boston Latin School is the oldest public school in America and was attended by several signatories of the Declaration of Independence.[121] Hartford Public High School is the second oldest operating high school in the U.S.[122]

text: As of 2005, the National Education Association ranked Connecticut as having the highest-paid teachers in the country. Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

text: New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have cooperated in developing a New England Common Assessment Program test under the No Child Left Behind guidelines. These states can compare the resultant scores with each other.

text: The Maine Learning Technology Initiative program supplies all students with Apple MacBook laptops.

text: Academic journals and press[edit]

text: There are several academic journals and publishing companies in the region, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard University Press, and Yale University Press. Some of its institutions lead the open access alternative to conventional academic publication, including MIT, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston publishes the New England Economic Review.[123]

text: Culture[edit]

text: New England has a shared heritage and culture primarily shaped by waves of immigration from Europe.[124] In contrast to other American regions, many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers came from eastern England, contributing to New England's distinctive accents, foods, customs, and social structures.[125]:30–50 Within modern New England a cultural divide exists between urban New Englanders living along the densely populated coastline, and rural New Englanders in western Massachusetts, northwestern and northeastern Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low.[126]

text: Today, New England is the least religious region of the U.S. In 2009, less than half of those polled in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont claimed that religion was an important part of their daily lives. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, also among the ten least religious states, 55 and 53%, respectively, of those polled claimed that it was.[127] According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 34% of Vermonters, a plurality, claimed to have no religion; on average, nearly one out of every four New Englanders identifies as having no religion, more than in any other part of the U.S.[128] New England had one of the highest percentages of Catholics in the U.S. This number declined from 50% in 1990 to 36% in 2008.[128]

text: Cultural roots[edit]

text: Many of the first European colonists of New England had a maritime orientation toward whaling (first noted about 1650)[129] and fishing, in addition to farming. New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine has a reputation for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.

text: New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic places. The region has become more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the U.S., and elsewhere. The enduring European influence can be seen in the region in the use of traffic rotaries, the bilingual French and English towns of northern Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, the region's heavy prevalence of English town- and county-names, and its unique, often non-rhotic coastal dialect reminiscent of southeastern England.

text: Within New England, many names of towns (and a few counties) repeat from state to state, primarily due to settlers throughout the region having named their new towns after their old ones. For example, the town of North Yarmouth, Maine was named by settlers from Yarmouth, Massachusetts, which was in turn named for Great Yarmouth in England. As another example, every New England state has a town named Warren, and every state except Rhode Island has a city or town named Andover, Bridgewater, Chester, Franklin, Manchester, Plymouth, Washington, and Windsor; in addition, every state except Connecticut has a Lincoln and a Richmond, and Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine each contains a Franklin County.

text: Accents[edit]

text: There are several American English accents spoken in the region, including New England English and its derivative known as the Boston accent,[130] which is native to the northeastern coastal regions of New England. The most identifiable features of the Boston accent are believed[by whom?] to have originated from England's Received Pronunciation, which shares features such as dropping the final R and the broad A. Another source was 17th century speech in East Anglia and Lincolnshire where many of the Puritan immigrants originated.[citation needed] The East Anglian "whine" developed into the Yankee "twang".[125] Boston accents were most strongly associated at one point with the so-called "Eastern Establishment" and Boston's upper class, although today the accent is predominantly associated with blue-collar natives, as exemplified by movies such as Good Will Hunting and The Departed. The Boston accent and those accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.[131]

text: Some Rhode Islanders speak with a non-rhotic accent that many compare to a "Brooklyn" accent or a cross between a New York and Boston accent, where "water" becomes "wata". Many Rhode Islanders distinguish the aw sound [ɔː], as one might hear in New Jersey; e.g., the word "coffee" is pronounced /ˈkɔːfi/ KAW-fee.[132] This type of accent was brought to the region by early settlers from eastern England in the Puritan migration in the mid-seventeenth century.[125]:13–207

text: Social activities and music[edit]

text: Acadian and Québécois culture are included in music and dance in much of rural New England, particularly Maine. Contra dancing and country square dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by live Irish, Acadian, or other folk music. Fife and drum corps are common, especially in southern New England and more specifically Connecticut, with music of mostly Celtic, English, and local origin.

text: Traditional knitting, quilting, and rug hooking circles in rural New England have become less common; church, sports, and town government are more typical social activities. These traditional gatherings are often hosted in individual homes or civic centers.

text: New England leads the U.S. in ice cream consumption per capita.[133][134] In the U.S., candlepin bowling is essentially confined to New England, where it was invented in the 19th century.[135]

text: New England was an important center of American classical music for some time. Prominent modernist composers also come from the region, including Charles Ives and John Adams. Boston is the site of the New England Conservatory and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

text: In popular music, the region has produced Donna Summer, JoJo, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Passion Pit, Meghan Trainor, New Kids on the Block, Rachel Platten, and John Mayer. In rock music, the region has produced Rob Zombie, Aerosmith, The Modern Lovers, Phish, the Pixies, GG Allin, the Dropkick Murphys, and Boston. Quincy, Massachusetts native Dick Dale helped popularize surf rock.

text: Media[edit]

text: The leading U.S. cable TV sports broadcaster ESPN is headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. New England has several regional cable networks, including New England Cable News (NECN) and the New England Sports Network (NESN). New England Cable News is the largest regional 24-hour cable news network in the U.S., broadcasting to more than 3.2 million homes in all of the New England states. Its studios are located in Newton, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, and it maintains bureaus in Manchester, New Hampshire; Hartford, Connecticut; Worcester, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; and Burlington, Vermont.[136] In Connecticut, Litchfield, Fairfield, and New Haven counties it also broadcasts New York based news programs—this is due in part to the immense influence New York has on this region's economy and culture, and also to give Connecticut broadcasters the ability to compete with overlapping media coverage from New York-area broadcasters.

text: NESN broadcasts the Boston Red Sox baseball and Boston Bruins hockey throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut.[137] Most of Connecticut, save for Windham county in the state's northeast corner, and even southern Rhode Island, receives the YES Network, which broadcasts the games of the New York Yankees. For the most part, the same areas also carry SportsNet New York (SNY), which broadcasts New York Mets games.

text: Comcast SportsNet New England broadcasts the games of the Boston Celtics, New England Revolution and Boston Cannons.

text: While most New England cities have daily newspapers, The Boston Globe and The New York Times are distributed widely throughout the region. Major newspapers also include The Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and Hartford Courant, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.S.[138]

text: Comedy[edit]

text: New Englanders are well represented in American comedy. Writers for The Simpsons and late-night television programs often come by way of the Harvard Lampoon. Family Guy is an animated sitcom situated in Rhode Island, created by Connecticut native and Rhode Island School of Design graduate Seth MacFarlane (along with American Dad! and The Cleveland Show). A number of Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast members have roots in New England, from Adam Sandler to Amy Poehler, who also stars in the NBC television series Parks and Recreation. Former Daily Show correspondents Rob Corddry and Steve Carell are from Massachusetts. Carell was also involved in film and the American adaptation of The Office, which features Dunder-Mifflin branches set in Stamford, Connecticut and Nashua, New Hampshire.

text: Late-night television hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien have roots in the Boston area. Notable stand-up comedians are also from the region, including Bill Burr, Dane Cook, Steve Sweeney, Steven Wright, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, Denis Leary, Lenny Clarke, Patrice O'Neal, and Louis CK. SNL cast member Seth Meyers once attributed the region's imprint on American humor to its "sort of wry New England sense of pointing out anyone who's trying to make a big deal of himself", with the Boston Globe suggesting that irony and sarcasm are its trademarks, as well as Irish influences.[139]

text: Literature[edit]

text: The literature of New England has had an enduring influence on American literature in general, with themes that are emblematic of the larger concerns of American letters, such as religion, race, the individual versus society, social repression, and nature.[140] Famous New England writers include Transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, poets Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop, and novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

text: Boston was the center of the American publishing industry for some years, largely on the strength of its local writers and before it was overtaken by New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of publishers Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Education, and it was the longtime home of literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Merriam-Webster is based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Yankee is a magazine for New Englanders based in Dublin, New Hampshire.

text: Twentieth and twenty-first century writers hailing from New England include Maine native Stephen King and New Hampshire native John Irving, and New England is a major setting of their works. George V. Higgins wrote about life in the New England criminal underworld, while H.P. Lovecraft set many of his works of horror in his native Rhode Island.

text: Film, television, and acting[edit]

text: New England has a rich history in filmmaking dating back to the dawn of the motion picture era at the turn of the 20th century, sometimes dubbed Hollywood East by film critics. A theater at 547 Washington Street in Boston was the second location to debut a picture projected by the Vitascope, and shortly thereafter several novels were being adapted for the screen and set in New England, including The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables.[141] The New England region continued to churn out films at a pace above the national average for the duration of the 20th century, including blockbuster hits such as Jaws, Good Will Hunting, and The Departed, all of which won Oscars. The New England area became known for a number of themes that recurred in films made during this era, including the development of yankee characters, smalltown life contrasted with city values, seafaring tales, family secrets, and haunted New England.[142] These themes are rooted in centuries of New England culture and are complemented by the region's diverse natural landscape and architecture, from the Atlantic Ocean and brilliant fall foliage to church steeples and skyscrapers.

text: Since the turn of the millennium, Boston and the greater New England region have been home to the production of numerous films and television series, thanks in part to tax incentive programs put in place by local governments to attract filmmakers to the region.[143]

text: Notable actors and actresses that have come from the New England area include Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Carell, Ruth Gordon, John Krasinski, Edward Norton, Mark Wahlberg, and Matthew Perry. A full list of those from Massachusetts can be found here, and a listing of notable films and television series produced in the area here.

text: Sports[edit]

text: Two popular American sports were invented in New England: basketball, invented by James Naismith (a Canadian) in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891,[144] and volleyball, invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan, in Holyoke, Massachusetts.[145] Additionally, Walter Camp is credited with developing modern American football in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1870s and 1880s.[146]

text: New Hampshire Motor Speedway is an oval racetrack that has hosted several NASCAR and American Championship Car Racing races, whereas Lime Rock Park in Connecticut is a traditional road racing venue home of sports car races. Events at these venues have had the "New England" moniker, such as the NASCAR New England 300 and New England 200, the IndyCar Series New England Indy 200, and the American Le Mans Series New England Grand Prix.

text: Professional and semi-professional sports teams[edit]

text: The major professional sports teams in New England are based in Massachusetts: the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots (based in Foxborough, Massachusetts), the Boston Celtics, the Boston Bruins, the New England Revolution (also based in Foxborough), the Boston Breakers, and the Boston Cannons. Hartford had a professional hockey team, the Hartford Whalers, from 1975 until they moved to North Carolina in 1997. A WNBA team, the Connecticut Sun, are based in southeastern Connecticut at the Mohegan Sun resort, which is also home to the professional indoor lacrosse team the New England Black Wolves. New England is also home to the Boston Blades, Boston Pride and the Connecticut Whale, which represent three of the five professional women's hockey teams in the United States.

text: There are also minor league baseball and hockey teams based in larger cities such as the Bridgeport Bluefish (baseball), the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (hockey), the Connecticut Tigers (baseball), the Hartford Yard Goats (baseball), the Hartford Wolf Pack (hockey), the Lowell Spinners (baseball), the Manchester Monarchs (hockey), the New Britain Bees (baseball), the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (baseball), the Pawtucket Red Sox (baseball), the Portland Sea Dogs (baseball), the Providence Bruins (hockey), the Springfield Thunderbirds (hockey), the Vermont Lake Monsters (baseball), and the Worcester Railers (hockey).

text: The NBA G League fields a team in New England: the Maine Red Claws, based in Portland, Maine. The Springfield Armor in Springfield, Massachusetts, previously played in the region. The Red Claws are affiliated with the Boston Celtics and the Armor were affiliated with the Brooklyn Nets, prior to relocating to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to become the Grand Rapids Drive. New England is also represented in the Premier Basketball League by the Vermont Frost Heaves of Barre, Vermont.

text: Thanksgiving Day high school football rivalries date back to the 19th century, and the Harvard-Yale rivalry ("The Game") is the oldest active rivalry in college football. The Boston Marathon, run on Patriots' Day every year, is a New England cultural institution and the oldest annual marathon in the world. While the race offers far less prize money than many other marathons, the race's difficulty and long history make it one of the world's most prestigious marathons.[147]

text: Transportation[edit]

text: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) provides rail and subway service within the Boston metropolitan area, bus service in Greater Boston, and commuter rail service throughout Eastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island. The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) operates the Metro-North Railroad, which provides commuter rail service in Southwestern Connecticut in the corridor between New York City and New Haven. CTDOT provides the Shore Line East commuter rail service along the Connecticut coastline east of New Haven, terminating in Old Saybrook and New London.

text: Amtrak provides interstate rail service throughout New England. Boston is the northern terminus of the Northeast Corridor. The Vermonter connects Vermont to Massachusetts and Connecticut, while the Downeaster links Maine to Boston. The long-distance Lake Shore Limited train has two eastern termini after splitting in Albany, one of which is Boston. This provides rail service on the former Boston and Albany Railroad, which runs between its namesake cities. The rest of the Lake Shore Limited continues to New York City.