So, you're thinking about attending a college or university in Rhode Island?

The state of Rhode Island is located in the northeastern section of the United States and is a part of the New England region. The state has the smallest area of any other state, 1,214 square miles, as well as the longest official name, which is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Though some people believe that, like it's name implies, Rhode Island actually lies on an island, this isn't the case. While the state does have over 30 islands as part of its territory, the majority of the state is in the mainland U.S. Rhode Island is bordered on the north and east by Massachusetts, on the south by Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west by Connecticut.

Rhode Island's landscape is fairly flat. There are no real mountains within the state. In fact, the highest point in the state, Jerimoth Hill, is only 812 feet above sea level. The state is, however, composed of a large number of beaches. Rhode Island is actually known to have some of the top beaches in the country. No person who lives within the state is more than thirty-minutes from the water's edge.

The climate of Rhode Island provides the state with hot, rainy summers and cold, snowy winters. The highest temperature ever recorded in the state was 105°F in 1975 while the lowest temperature was -13°F in 1996. The average monthly temperatures, however, generally range from a high of 82°F to a low of 20°F.

In 2005, Rhode Island's population was estimated to be 1,076,189. This was actually a decrease of 0.3%, or 3,727 people, from measurements done during the previous year. Even so, the state is known to have the largest percentage of Italian-Americans and Americans of Portuguese ancestry than any other U.S. state.

The voters of Rhode Island have made the state one of the most reliably Democratic states, at least during presidential elections. In the 2004 presidential election, Rhode Island voters gave their support to John Kerry with 59.4% of the total vote, which allowed him to win the state by a margin of more than 20 percentage points. Currently, while the state's governor is a Republican, both U.S. Senators as well as both of the state's U.S. Congressmen are Democrats. The Democratic Party also dominates both houses of the state's legislature.

Rhode Island has the highest percentage of Roman Catholics in the entire United States. While 81% of the state's residents say they are Christian, 56% identify themselves as Roman Catholic. Only around 28% claim one of the Protestant belief systems while 16% are non-religious. This makes Rhode Island one of only two states in the nation in which a majority of the population claim membership to a single religious denomination.

There are a few colleges and universities in Rhode Island to decide between if you want to attend a school here. They include:

• The University of Rhode Island

• Brown University

• Rhode Island College

• The Naval War College

To find more information about universities and colleges in this area, visit the Online College Degrees page on this website.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rhode Island".

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