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State bird, Rhode Island red. State flower, violet
State tree, red maple

Smallest State in the USA a mere 48 miles long by 37 miles wide, and tends to be overlooked as a destination, even if it is home to more than twenty percent of the nation's historical landmarks.

Narragansett Bay; it is, in fact, made up of over thirty tiny islands, including Hope and Despair. 

Newport, has a popular state beach, while the rest of Rhode Island is largely made up of relaxed small towns and fishing ports.

NEWPORT stands at the southern tip of the largest island in Narragansett Bay, Aquidneck Island . It was established as a colony by William Coddington of Providence in 1639. Due to its excellent harbor, it grew rapidly as a port for the triangle trade and as a privateering center. Religious tolerance led to an influx of Jews, Quakers and Baptists who formed lucrative international trade links, but this great prosperity was severely knocked back by the British occupation of 1776-79, when half the population fled and much of the town was burned down. Fortunately, enough of its original eighteenth-century homes have survived for Newport to rival Boston in this respect.

In the 1850s the town became fashionable again as a resort for wealthy Southern merchants, and very soon nouveau riche industrialists such as the Astors, Belmonts and Vanderbilts were building " summer cottages " - better described as mansions - along the rocky coastline. The obscene ostentation of this era, now known by Mark Twain's disparaging phrase as the Gilded Age , shocked Massachusetts' old wealth to the core.

Depression killed off the decadence, but Newport kept going as a naval town until the 1970s. Today the town feeds off tourism; much of it caters to the tennis and yachting set, but there are as many people looking at - and envying - the wealth as enjoying it. Though sanitized by the ugly new America's Cup Avenue , which replaced the sea-salt rawness of the waterfront with bars and boutiques, the rough old port still rears its boozy head, with beer and R&B clubs as evident as cocktails and cruises, making it an essential stop, especially during the summer festival season .

The Town
Newport's main attractions are obviously its mansions , but there is nothing to be gained by attempting to tour them all, and while it's pleasant enough to stroll around the predominantly colonial downtown

Pawtucket
In 1793, Samuel Slater used technology surreptitiously imported from England to shove Rhode Island into the industrial age. His landmark Old Slater Mill is still in operation, in suburban Pawtucket. A ten-minute drive north to exit 28 on I-95, the Slater Mill Historic Site , on Roosevelt Avenue, also includes in its museum of the Industrial Revolution the 1810 Wilkinson Mill and the 1758 Sylvanus Brown House (June-Nov Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Dec to late April

PROVIDENCE was Rhode Island's first settlement, founded "in commemoration of God's providence" on land given to Roger Williams by the Narragansett Indians (his insistence that Indians should be paid for their land being waived in his own case). Now New England's fourth largest city, it has been the state capital since 1901, and flourished as one of the most important ports of call in the notorious "triangle trade," where New England rum was exchanged for African slaves, who were then sold for West Indian molasses. Since Slater's invention of the water-powered textile mill, port trade and industry have been the mainstays of the economy. Today Ivy League Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD or "Rizdee") give the place a certain cultural verve (although this admittedly doesn't stray far beyond the immediate environs of College Hill on the east bank of the river), and the many original colonial homes on Benefit Street emphasize a historical importance almost absent from the somewhat drab downtown across the river. Ethnic diversity is provided by Little Italy on Federal Hill, west of the river, and by fairly voluble Greek and Portuguese - and especially Cape Verdean - communities.
The City
Providence's main attractions focus around three of its seven hills. Downtown, which centers on Kennedy Plaza , is situated just below Constitution Hill. City Hall , at the western end of the plaza,