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Maine
The Pine Tree State, rugged northeastern frontier
Maine is the largest New England state and the most heavily forested in the nation — woods cover nearly 90 percent of it. It occupies the far northeastern corner of the country, jutting into Canada, with a famously jagged Atlantic coastline of rocky headlands, drowned river mouths, and thousands of islands. Inland the land rises through lake-strewn forest to the rounded peaks of the northern Appalachians, ending at Mount Katahdin, the high point at 5,269 feet (1,606 m) and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.
The coast is the state's signature: deeply indented by glaciers, it stretches some 3,500 miles in actual shoreline despite a direct distance of barely 200, lined with lobster harbors, granite ledges, and the pink cliffs of Acadia. The interior, the "North Woods," is one of the largest undeveloped forest blocks east of the Mississippi, drained by rivers once used to float logs to the mills. Cold, wooded, and thinly settled, Maine feels like the edge of the country it sits on.
Economy
Maine's economy rests on its forests and its coast: forestry and paper products inland, and a fishing industry famous for lobster, of which Maine lands the great majority caught in the United States. Tourism drawn to the rugged coast and Acadia, agriculture (potatoes and wild blueberries), and shipbuilding at Bath Iron Works round it out.
Politics
Maine carries 4 electoral votes and leans Democratic, but it is independent-minded and is one of only two states that split their electoral votes by congressional district, so the rural northern district sometimes awards a vote to the Republican candidate.