Maryland is a Mid‑Atlantic state of the United States. It touches Virginia to the south, West Virginia to the west, Pennsylvania to the north, and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, with Washington, D.C. just to its southwest. Covering 12,407 sq mi (32,130 km²), it is the ninth-smallest state by area. Yet, with roughly 6.18 million residents, it is the 18th-most populous and the fifth-most densely populated. Annapolis is the state capital, while Baltimore is its largest city. First explored by Europeans in the 1500s, the region was initially inhabited by Algonquian-speaking tribes. In 1632, King Charles I granted George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, a charter to establish the Province of Maryland—named for Queen Henrietta Maria—as a haven for English Catholics. Settled officially in 1634, the colony’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion was among the earliest laws ensuring religious toleration. Plantations along Chesapeake Bay tributaries drove an economy based on tobacco and suppo...