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Hartford
Capital of Connecticut, on the Connecticut River
Hartford sits on the west bank of the Connecticut River in the broad central valley that splits the state, near the head of navigation where oceangoing ships once unloaded. Settled by English Puritans in the 1630s, it is one of the oldest cities in the country, and its 1639 Fundamental Orders are sometimes called the first written constitution in the colonies — the root of Connecticut's "Constitution State" nickname.
The river made Hartford a trading and insurance center — by the 19th century it had become the headquarters of America's insurance industry, a role it still holds. The surrounding valley is gentle, fertile lowland between low wooded hills. Today Hartford anchors a metro of more than a million in the middle of the densely settled Boston–New York corridor.