Connecticut in the context of Hartford Courant

Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land area. The island extends from New York Harbor 118 miles (190 km) eastward into the ocean with a maximum north–south width of 23 miles (37 km). With a land area of 1,401 square miles (3,630 km), it is the largest island in the contiguous United States and the 11th largest island in the U.S.

Long Island is divided among four counties with Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, and Nassau counties occupying its western third and Suffolk County its eastern two-thirds. To what extent Brooklyn and Queens are considered with Long Island is a matter of debate. Geographically, both Kings and Queens county are located on the Island, but some argue they are culturally separate from Long Island. Long Island may refer both to the main island and the surrounding outer barrier islands. Long Island is separated from Manhattan Island and the Bronx by the East River tidal estuary in the west part of the island. North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which lie Westchester County, New York, and the state of Connecticut. Across the Block Island Sound to the northeast is the state of Rhode Island. Block Island, which is part of Rhode Island, and numerous smaller islands extend farther into the Atlantic Ocean. To the extreme southwest, Long Island, at Brooklyn, is separated from Staten Island and the state of New Jersey by Upper New York Bay, The Narrows, and Lower New York Bay.

A borough in some U.S. states is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. The term is currently used in six states:

• A type of municipality: Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania (also formerly Michigan and Minnesota)
• A subdivision of a consolidated city, corresponding to another present or previous political subdivision: New York and Virginia
• In Alaska only, a borough is a county-equivalent.

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the region encompassing the coastline where the Eastern United States meets the Atlantic Ocean; it has always played a major socioeconomic role in the development of the United States.

The region is generally understood to include the U.S. states that border the Atlantic Ocean: Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia, as well as some landlocked states (Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, and the district of Washington, D.C.).

The Jersey Shore, commonly called the Shore by locals, is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The term encompasses about 141 miles (227 km) of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May Point in the south. The region includes Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May counties, which are in the central and southern parts of the state. Located in the center of the Northeast Megalopolis, the northern half of the shore region is part of the New York metro area, while the southern half of the shore region is part of the Philadelphia metro area. The Jersey Shore hosts the highest concentration of oceanside boardwalks in the United States.

Famous for its wide beaches, and many boardwalks featuring arcades, amusement parks, and water parks, the Jersey Shore is a popular vacation spot for residents of North Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Certain shore communities are also popular with visitors from the Canadian province of Quebec. Due to New Jersey's peninsular geography, both sunrise and sunset are visible over water from different points on the Jersey Shore.

The Western Connecticut Planning Region is a planning region and county-equivalent in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is served by the coterminous Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG), one of nine regional councils of governments in Connecticut. Within the region, there are two Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), South Western CT MPO and the Housatonic Valley MPO.

The region includes the Connecticut Panhandle, Greater Danbury, and the Gold Coast. In 2022, planning regions were approved to replace Connecticut's counties as county-equivalents for statistical purposes, with full implementation occurring in 2024.

Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York state to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches 110 mi (180 km) from the East River and the Throgs Neck Bridge in New York City, along the North Shore of Long Island, to Block Island Sound. The sound forms part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

A mix of freshwater from tributaries, and saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound is 21 mi (34 km) at its widest point and varies in depth from 65 to 230 feet (20 to 70 m).

Rhode Island (/ˌroʊd -/ ROHD) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound; and shares a small maritime border with New York, east of Long Island. Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly more than 1.1 million residents as of 2024. The state's population, however, has continually recorded growth in every decennial census since 1790, and it is the second-most densely populated state after New Jersey. The state takes its name from the eponymous island, though most of its land area is on the mainland. Providence is its capital and most populous city.

Native Americans lived around Narragansett Bay before English settlers began arriving in the early 17th century. Rhode Island was unique among the Thirteen British Colonies in having been founded by a refugee, Roger Williams, who fled religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a haven for religious liberty. He founded Providence in 1636 on land purchased from local tribes, creating the first settlement in North America with an explicitly secular government. The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations subsequently became a destination for religious and political dissenters and social outcasts, earning it the moniker "Rogue's Island".

In 45 of the 50 states of the United States, the county is used for the level of local government immediately below the state itself. Louisiana uses parishes, and Alaska uses boroughs. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, some or all counties within states have no governments of their own; the counties continue to exist as legal entities, however, and are used by states for some administrative functions and by the United States Census bureau for statistical analysis. There are 3,242 counties and county equivalent administrative units in total, including the District of Columbia and 100 county-equivalents in the U.S. territories.

There are 41 independent cities in the United States. In Virginia, any municipality that is incorporated as a city legally becomes independent of any county. Where indicated, the statistics below do not include Virginia's 38 independent cities.

War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, based on H. G. Wells' 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise stars in the main role alongside Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, and Tim Robbins, with narration by Morgan Freeman. It follows an American dock worker who must look after his estranged children as he struggles to protect and reunite them with their mother when extraterrestrials invade Earth and devastate cities with giant war machines.

Produced by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, and Cruise/Wagner Productions, the film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. It was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi.

Massachusetts (/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsɪts/ /-zɪts/ MASS-ə-CHOO-sits, -⁠zits; Massachusett: Muhsachuweesut [məhswatʃəwiːsət]), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to its south, New Hampshire and Vermont to its north, and New York to its west. Massachusetts is the seventh-smallest state by land area. With an estimated population of over 7.1 million, it is the most populous state in New England, the 16th-most-populous in the United States, and the third-most densely populated U.S. state, after New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Massachusetts was a site of early English colonization. The Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims of Mayflower. In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, taking its name from the Indigenous Massachusett people, also established settlements in Boston and Salem. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. The American Revolution originated in Massachusetts, with Boston becoming known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for its political agitation. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing, and trade, Massachusetts transformed into a manufacturing hub during the Industrial Revolution. Before the American Civil War, the state was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, and transcendentalist movements. During the 20th century, the state's economy shifted from manufacturing to services; in the 21st century, Massachusetts has become the global leader in biotechnology, and also excels in artificial intelligence, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade.

There are eight counties in the U.S. state of Connecticut.

Four of the counties – Fairfield, Hartford, New Haven and New London – were created in 1666, shortly after the Connecticut Colony and the New Haven Colony combined. Windham and Litchfield counties were created later in the colonial era, while Middlesex and Tolland counties were created after American independence (both in 1785). Six of the counties are named for locations in England, where many early Connecticut settlers originated; Fairfield County was named after the salt marshes that bordered the coast, while New Haven County was named for the New Haven Colony.

In Connecticut, councils of governments, also known as COGs, are regional planning organizations that bring together the chief elected officials or professional managers from member municipalities in Connecticut. Since 2015 and 2022, the Connecticut planning regions served by COGs have been recognized as county equivalents under state and federal law respectively, superseding the eight legacy counties in the state for most federal funding and statistical purposes.

The COGs are meant to aid coordination among neighboring cities and towns, and between the towns and the state government, on issues including land use, zoning, and transportation. They serve some functions analogous to county governments in other states, but have no independent taxing authority (Connecticut disbanded county governments in 1960). Councils of government also host some intermunicipal services based on the needs and voluntary participation of member or client municipalities. Councils, or COGs, receive funding through membership dues, state grants, and federal grants.

Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by tectonic and localized stresses in Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by faults. Blocks are characterized by relatively uniform lithology. The largest of these fault blocks are called crustal blocks. Large crustal blocks broken off from tectonic plates are called terranes. Those terranes which are the full thickness of the lithosphere are called microplates. Continent-sized blocks are called variously microcontinents, continental ribbons, H-blocks, extensional allochthons and outer highs.

Because most stresses relate to the tectonic activity of moving plates, most motion between blocks is horizontal, that is parallel to the Earth's crust by strike-slip faults. However vertical movement of blocks produces much more dramatic results. Landforms (mountains, hills, ridges, lakes, valleys, etc.) are sometimes formed when the faults have a large vertical displacement. Adjacent raised blocks (horsts) and down-dropped blocks (grabens) can form high escarpments. Often the movement of these blocks is accompanied by tilting, due to compaction or stretching of the crust at that point.

New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston, comprising the Boston–Worcester–Providence Combined Statistical Area, houses more than half of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England; Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire; and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island. In 1620, the Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony, the second successful settlement in British America after the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, founded in 1607. Ten years later, Puritans established Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars until the English colonists and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquian allies.

In the late 18th century, political leaders from the New England colonies initiated resistance to Britain's taxes without the consent of the colonists. Residents of Rhode Island captured and burned a British Royal Navy ship which was enforcing unpopular trade restrictions, and residents of Boston threw British tea into the harbor. Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government which the colonists called the "Intolerable Acts". These confrontations led to the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and the expulsion of the British authorities from the region in spring 1776. The region played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, and it was the first region of the U.S. transformed by the Industrial Revolution, initially centered on the Blackstone and Merrimack river valleys.

The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. Located on the Atlantic coast of North America, the region borders Canada to its north, the Southern United States to its south, the Midwestern United States to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east.

The Northeast is one of the four regions defined by the U.S. Census Bureau for the collection and analysis of statistics. The Census Bureau defines the region as including the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and three lower North-Eastern states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Some expanded definitions of the region include Mid-Atlantic locations such as Delaware, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

There are 3,244 counties and county equivalents in the United States. The 50 states of the United States are divided into 3,007 political subdivisions of states called counties. Two hundred thirty-seven other local governments and geographic places are also first-order administrative divisions of their respective state/district/territory, but are not called counties. The United States Census Bureau refers to the latter as county equivalents. The 237 county equivalents include the District of Columbia and 100 equivalents in U.S. territories (such as those in Puerto Rico). The large majority of counties and equivalents were organized by 1970. Since that time, most creations, boundary changes and dissolutions have occurred in Alaska, Virginia, and Connecticut.

Among the 50 states, 44 are partitioned entirely into counties, with no county equivalents. Louisiana is instead divided into 64 equivalent parishes, while Alaska is divided into 19 equivalent boroughs and 11 sparsely populated census areas, the latter also known collectively as the unorganized borough. Virginia is composed of a mixture of 95 counties and 38 independent cities. Maryland, Missouri and Nevada are each composed entirely of counties, except that each also has exactly one independent city: Baltimore, St. Louis, and Carson City, respectively. The District of Columbia is a single federal district that is not part of any state or county. All of the above 136 exceptional cases are reckoned as county equivalents. The number of counties (or equivalents) per state ranges from the three counties of Delaware, to the 254 counties of Texas. In New England, where the town model predominates, several counties have no corresponding local governments, existing only as historical, legal, and census boundaries, such as the counties of Rhode Island, as well as eight of Massachusetts' 14 counties. On June 6, 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau formally recognized Connecticut's nine councils of government as county equivalents instead of the state's eight counties. Connecticut's eight historical counties continue to exist in name only, and are no longer considered for statistical purposes. In total, the 50 states consist of 3,144 counties and equivalents.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation in New York State responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in North America, serving 12 counties in Downstate New York, along with two counties in southwestern Connecticut under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, carrying over 11 million passengers on an average weekday systemwide, and over 850,000 vehicles on its seven toll bridges and two tunnels per weekday.

The Mid-Atlantic is a region of the United States located in the eastern part of the country. Traditional definitions include seven U.S. states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the national capital of Washington, D.C.

Depending on various factors, different regional divisions exist however: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its newest regional division excludes New York from the region; the U.S. Census Bureau excludes Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia from the region; USGS defines the region by watersheds thus additionally including North Carolina; the EPA excludes both New York and New Jersey; the U.S. Maritime Administration excludes upper New Jersey and New York; the Office of Small Business Programs of the U.S. Department of Defense excludes New York. When discussing climate, Connecticut is sometimes included, since its climate is closer to the Mid-Atlantic than the rest of the New England region.