New Jersey

NEW JERSEY, the Garden State, is one of the 13 original colonies of the United States and has become a densely populated region with an intensively used transportation system mostly used to take people and goods out of the state. The state has, perhaps a little unfairly, come to symbolize the rundown industrial northeast of the country and to be associated with corrupt politics and organized crime. New Jersey residents might resent these imputations but have, nevertheless, found it difficult to create much of a sense of distinctive identity.

The state is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. It has a total land area of just over 8,700 square miles, making it the fifth smallest in the country, but has a ...