Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

• Jersey Shore
• Jersey Thursday
• Jersey's Where it's At
• New Jersey Sunset
• New Jersey Turnpike
• On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City
• On the Way to Cape May

Quotes

• Cape May is a determinedly antique town that carries off its presumption with uncommon success. (Walter Cronkite)
• I had rather see my horse, Button, eating the grass of Bordentown, than see all the show and pomp of Europe. (Thomas Paine)
• I live in New Jersey now, which always gets a bad rap here and there, but I must say, I enjoy living here too. (Paul Muldoon)
• The predominant influence in Cranbury is not Princeton or the industrial regions around the corner, but the Presbyterian Church whose white steeple rises gracefully above the housetops. (James Morris)
• There's a high school in Camden, New Jersey, I call the Jill Scott School. It's the Camden Creative Arts High School. Those teachers and kids are so passionate about what they do, and 98 percent of the senior class went on to college. (Jill Scott)

New Jersey Symbols

• Nicknames: The Garden State; The Clam State; The Pathway of Revolution; The Jersey Blue State; Switzerland of America
• Slogan: New Jersey and You Are Perfect Together
• Motto: Liberty and Prosperity
• Colors: Buff and Jersey Blue
• Song: I'm From New Jersey
• Unofficial Song: New Jersey Loyalty
• Folk Dance: Square Dance
• Animal: Horse
• Bird: Eastern Goldfinch
• Fish: Brook Trout
• Insect: Honeybee
• Tree: Northern Red Oak
• Memorial Tree: Dogwood
• Flower: Purple Violet
• Shell: Knobbed Whelk (found on all beaches and bays of NJ)
• Dinosaur: Hadrosaurus foulkii
• Fruit: Highbush Blueberry
• Pro Sports Teams: NJ Nets (basketball) and NJ Devils (hockey)

Facts About New Jersey

• Capital: Trenton
• Residents: New Jerseyites, New Jerseyans
• State Name Origin: named for the island of Jersey in the English Channel
• Admitted to Statehood: 18 Dec 1787
• Order of Admission: 3rd state
• Coastline/Shoreline: 130/1,792 miles
• Length: 150 miles
• Width: 70 miles
• Area: 8,721 square miles
• Size Rank: 47
• Number of Counties: 21
• Streams and Rivers: 6,450 miles
• Geographic Center: 5 miles SE of Trenton in Mercer Co.
• Mean Elevation: 250 feet
• Highest Point: High Point, 1,803 feet
• Lowest Point: Atlantic coast, sea level
• Agricultural Products: nursery and greenhouse products, food products, tomatoes, blueberries, peaches
• Commercial Products: chemicals (largest chemical producing state), oil refining (largest petroleum containment area outside the Middle East), pharmaceuticals, electronic equipment, apparel, software (nearly 2,700 software related companies), tourism (state's second largest industry)
• Average Annual Rainfall: 41.9 inches
• Average Winter High Temperature: 35 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -34 degrees (5 Jan 1904 River Vale)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 79 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 110 degrees (10 Jul 1936 Runyon)
• Official Language: English
• More information about New Jersey

I'm From New Jersey

(words and music by Red Mascara)

I know of a state that's a perfect playland with white sandy beaches by the sea;
With fun-filled mountains, lakes and parks, and folks with hospitality;
With historic towns where battles were fought, and presidents have made their home;
It's called New Jersey, and I toast and tout it wherever I may roam.
'Cause . . .

First Chorus
I'm From New Jersey and I'm proud about it, I love the Garden State.
I'm From New Jersey and I want to shout it, I think it's simply great.
All of the other states throughout the nation may mean a lot to some;
But I wouldn't want another, Jersey is like no other, I'm glad that's where I'm from.

Second Chorus
If you want glamor, try Atlantic City or Wildwood by the sea;
Then there is Trenton, Princeton, and Fort Monmouth, they all made history.
Each little town has got that certain something, from High Point to Cape May;
And some place like Mantoloking, Phillipsburg, or Hoboken will steal your heart away.

Items of Interest

• New Jersey has the highest population density in the U.S.--1,030 people per square mile (13 times the national average.)
• New Jersey has the highest percent urban population in the U.S. with about 90 percent of the people living in an urban area.
• New Jersey is the only state where all its counties are classified as metropolitan areas.
• New Jersey has the most dense system of highways and railroads in the U.S.
• More cars are stolen in Newark then any other city (even NYC and LA put together)
• New Jersey has the most diners in the world.
• North Jersey has the most shopping malls in one area in the world (7 major shopping malls in a 25 sq. mile radius).
• Cape May is the oldest seashore resort in the United States and one of the most unique.
• Parsippany has been named Tree City USA for 24 consecutive years.
• John Roebling, along with his two sons, Washington and Ferdinand, built a suspension bridge across the gorge of the Niagara River, the Brooklyn Bridge and many other suspension bridges in the U.S.
• The largest seaport in the U.S. located in Elizabeth.
• Atlantic City is where the street names came from for the game Monopoly
• Atlantic City has the longest boardwalk in the world.
• New Jersey has the tallest water tower in the world.
• New Jersey is the only state in the nation which offers child abuse prevention workshops to every public school.
• The first baseball game was played in Hoboken.
• The first intercollegiate football game was played in New Brunswick, in 1869. Rutgers College defeated Princeton.
• The first Drive-In Movie theater was opened in Camden.
• New Jersey has 108 toxic waste dumps more than any other state.
• Modern paleontology, the science of studying dinosaur fossils, began in 1858 with the discovery of the first nearly complete skeleton of a dinosaur in Haddonfield, NJ.
• Atlantic City's original summer visitors were the Absegami Indians of the Lenni Lenape tribe.
• Fair Haven is believed to have been seasonally inhabited by native Indians prior to the coming of European settlers in the 1660's.
• The first Indian reservation was in New Jersey.

Notable Natives

Some of these were born here, others just lived a while in the state.

• William "Bud" Abbott (1895-1974) - comedian (Asbury Park)
• Charles Addams (1912-1988) - cartoonist (Westfield)
• Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930- ) - astronaut (Montclair)
• William "Count" Basie - big band leader (Red Bank)
• Joan Bennett - actress (Palisades)
• Judy Blume (1938- ) - author (Elizabeth)
• William J. Brennan - supreme court justice (Newark)
• Aaron Burr (1756-1836) - statesman, vice president under Thomas Jefferson (Newark)
• Joseph Campbell (1817-1900) - founder of the Campbell Soup Company (Camden county)
• Grover Cleveland (1837-1908 - 22nd and 24th U.S. president (Caldwell)
• James Fenimore Cooper - novelist (Burlington)
• David Copperfield - magician (Metuchen)
• Lou Costello (1906-1959) - comedian (Paterson)
• Stephen Crane (1871-1900)- author (Newark)
• Thomas Edison - inventor of the light bulb, phonograph and motion picture projector
• Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - physicist (lived in Princeton)
• Allen Ginsberg - poet (Newark)
• Savion Glover - choreographer (Newark)
• William F. Halsey, Jr. - admiral (Elizabeth)
• Whitney Houston (1963- ) - singer, actress (Newark)
• Jon Bon Jovi (born John Francis Bongiovi) (1962- ) - musician, singer (Perth Amboy)
• Joyce Kilmer - author, poet (New Brunswick)
• Alfred C. Kinsey - zoologist (Hoboken)
• Ernie Kovacs - comedian (Trenton)
• Dorothea Lange - photographer (Hoboken)
• Jerry Lewis (1926- ) - actor, comedian (Newark)
• Anne Morrow Lindbergh - author (Englewood)
• James W. Marshall - discovered gold in California (Hunterdon)
• Patricia McBride - ballerina (Teanick)
• Norman Mailer - novelist (Long Branch)
• Jack Nicholson (1937- ) - actor (Neptune City)
• Richard Nixon - U.S. president
• Dorothy Parker - author (West Bend)
• Zebulon Mongomery Pike - explorer, soldier (Lamberton)
• Joe Piscopo - actor, comedian (Passaic)
• Christina A. Reif - entrepreneur
• Paul Robeson (1898-1976) - first black all-American football player, singer, actor (Princeton)
• Philip Milton Roth - novelist (Newark)
• Ruth St. Denis - dancer, choreographer (Newark)
• Antonin Scalia - U.S. supreme court justice (Trenton)
• H. Norman Schwarzkopf - general, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Trenton)
• Paul Simon (1941- ) - singer (Newark)
• Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) - actor, singer (Hoboken)
• Kevin Spacey - actor (South Orange)
• Bruce Springsteen (1949- ) - singer, musician (Freehold)
• Amos Alonzo Stagg - football coach (West Orange)
• Alfred Stieglitz - photographer (Hoboken)
• Meryl Streep - actress (Summit)
• Albert Payson Terhune - author, journalist (Newark)
• Dave Thomas - restaurateur (Atlantic City)
• John Travolta (1954- ) - actor (Englewood)
• William Henry Vanderbilt - financier (New Brunswick)
• Sarah Vaughn - singer (Newark)
• Dionne Warwick - actress, singer (East Orange)
• William Carlos Williams - physician, poet (Rutherford)
• Edmund Wilson - author, critic (Red Bank)

The New Jersey State Flag
The flag background is buff representing the facing of uniforms worn by NJ soldiers in the Revolutionary War. In the center is the state coat of arms. The shield has three plows with a horse's head above it. The women represent the goddesses of Liberty and Agriculture. A ribbon at the bottom has the year of independence in 1776 and the state motto "Liberty and Prosperity". The flag was adopted in 1896.

Basic Rules For Driving In New Jersey

• A right lane construction closure is just a game to see how many people can cut in line by passing you on the right as you sit in the left lane waiting for the same jerks to squeeze their way back in before hitting the construction barrels.
• Turn signals are just clues as to your next move in road battle so never use them.
• Under no circumstances should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you no matter how fast you're going. If you do, the space will be filled in by somebody else putting you in an even more dangerous situation.
• The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you have of getting hit.
• Never get in the way of a car that needs extensive body work.
• Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to insure that your antilock braking system kicks in to give you a nice relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates.
• Construction signs tell you about road closures immediately after you pass the exit but before the traffic begins to back up.
• The electronic traffic warning system signs are not there to provide useful information; they're just to make the Turnpike look progressive.
• Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right. It's a good way to scare people entering the highway.
• Speed limits are arbitrary figures to make NJ look as if it conforms with other state policies; these are given only as suggestions.
• Just because you're in the left lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that the driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.
• Please remember that there is no such thing as a shortcut during rush-hour traffic on the Garden State Parkway.
• Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even a person changing a tire. If you're lucky, you may see the unwitting breakdown victim get mugged.
• Learn to swerve abruptly. NJ is the home of the high-speed slalom driving thanks to NJDOT, who put potholes in key locations to test drivers' reflexes and keep them on their toes.
• It is traditional in NJ to honk your horn at cars that don't move the instant the light changes. The state is founded upon such traditions.
• Seeking eye contact with another driver revokes your right of way.
• All unmarked exits on the Parkway lead to downtown Newark.

Songs about New Jersey

• Alone in New Jersey - Bigwig (2008)
• Garden State Stomp - Dave Van Ronk (1985)
• I'm From New Jersey - John Gorka (2004)
• Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen (1986)
• Jersey Shore - Promise Ring (1999)
• Jersey Thursday - Donovan (1965)
• Jersey's Where it's At - Belle and Sebastian (2002)
• Never Going Back to New Jersey - Less Than Jake (1996)
• New Jersey Girl - Nerf Herder (2005)
• New Jersey in My Rearview - The June Spirit (2001)
• New Jersey Sunset - Buddy Mondlock (2004)
• New Jersey Turnpike - Laurie Anderson (1983)
• Scatter My Ashes on the New Jersey Turnpike - Tris McCall (2003)
• Sometimes, New Jersey - Saves the Day (21998)

Songs about New Jersey Cities

• Bumpy Weather Over Newark - The Beau Hunks (1995)
• Devil In Jersey City - Coheed and Cambria (2002)
• Grovers Corners, New Jersey - Lanemeyer (2000)
• Jersey City - Hudson Falcons (2000)
• Jersey City Spring Water - Bob Evans (1995)
• Little Peach From East Orange - Ray Anthony Orchestra (1950)
• On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City - Freddy Martin Band (1946)
• On the Way to Cape May - Al Alberts (1960)