A Geography of New Jersey

An examination of themes in both the contemporary and historical geography of New Jersey. It provides an analysis of the state's physical geography, human ecology, early European settlement, cultural landscape, race and ethnicity, agriculture, transportation, industrial development and regions.

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New Jersey is "the city in the garden." It is a bundle of paradoxes - a highly industrialized state famous for its seashore and mountain resorts; a fairly conservative state politically that nonetheless pioneered state land use, zoning, and environmental protection legislation. The only state to be characterized by the U.S. Census as entirely metropolitan, New Jersey has the highest population density in the nation. It is a highly suburbanized state that remains important agriculturally, one in which both very large and very small farms continue to multiply.