State bird
Rhode Island Red
Sources: Designation & background
Local timeProvidence ·
U.S. States / Northeast · Card 039
Rhode Island
The Ocean State
Roger Williams National Memorial is an urban historical site in Providence.
Rhode Island and its surroundings
● State capital · Gold highlights Rhode Island.
Map: Natural Earth. Neighboring states use postal abbreviations.
Map: Natural Earth. Neighboring states use postal abbreviations.
At a glance
- Capital
- Providence
- Postal abbreviation
- RI
- Population
- 1,114,521July 1, 2025 · Census estimate
- Total area
- 4,001 km²1,545 square miles · land and water
- Constitution ratified
- May 29, 1790One of the original thirteen states
- Region
- Northeast
Sources: Census · population · Census · area
State symbols & traditions
State song
Rhode Island’s It for Me
Sources: Designation & background
State appetizer
Calamari
Sources: Designation & background
Geography & flag
01
Location
Neighboring states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York.
02
Landscape & places
Roger Williams National Memorial is an urban historical site in Providence. Its purpose is to interpret the founding of the settlement and religious liberty, showing that a national park site can protect an idea’s historical setting rather than a large wilderness.
03
Land and water
The total area includes 2,678 km² of land and 1,324 km² of water, according to Census area measurements.
State flag
A gold anchor and thirteen stars on a white field, with a blue Hope ribbon.
Sources: Census · geographic reference · Census · area measurements · National Park Service · Roger Williams
How the landscape works
Roger Williams National Memorial is an urban site. Its importance comes from the historical setting of Providence and religious liberty rather than size or wilderness. This helps broaden the meaning of a protected place: a small site can connect visitors with a major political idea. Historical geography asks where ideas were practiced and contested, not only where mountains and rivers lie.
History
Why Roger Williams founded Providence
Roger Williams challenged the religious and political authorities of Massachusetts Bay. He argued that civil government should not punish people for religious beliefs and disputed colonial claims to Indigenous land. After his banishment, he established Providence in 1636 on land obtained through an agreement with Narragansett leaders.
Providence became a settlement associated with liberty of conscience, meaning that people could practice religion without the government prescribing their beliefs. Williams’s ideas differed from the enforced religious conformity of neighboring colonies. This history helps explain Rhode Island’s association with religious freedom, while not implying that every form of inequality disappeared.
Read more: Historical source ↗
Why this mattered
Roger Williams’s views brought him into conflict with Massachusetts authorities. After his banishment, he founded Providence as a settlement associated with liberty of conscience. The issue was the relationship between religious belief and civil authority. The story is not just that a town was founded, but why a different arrangement of authority mattered.
Key dates
-
Colonial charter granted
-
Last original state to ratify the U.S. Constitution
-
Constitution ratified · One of the original thirteen states
Sources: Congressional Research Service · statehood · U.S. Census Bureau · historical geography · National Park Service
People and place
Indigenous history and communities today
The Narragansett Indian Tribe provides a living Indigenous perspective from Rhode Island. Roger Williams’s story belongs within a region that already contained communities and political relationships before Providence was founded.
Continue with Narragansett Indian Tribe. This is one starting point, not a complete account of the peoples connected to this land.
Compare
Rhode Island and Connecticut
| Measure | Rhode Island | Connecticut |
|---|---|---|
| Population (2025) | 1,114,521 | 3,688,496 |
| Land area (km²) | 2,678 | 12,542 |
| People per km² of land | 416.2 | 294.1 |
Rhode Island has more people per square kilometer of land. Population density divides population by land area. It is an average across the whole jurisdiction, not a claim that residents are evenly spread out.
Calculated from the Census population series and land-area measurements used on these pages. Rounded figures; water area is excluded. Explore Connecticut.
Economy
Main activities
In 2025, real estate and rental and leasing was the largest of the broad industry groups compared here by current-dollar output. Other major groups included educational services, health care, and social assistance, professional and business services, and government and government enterprises.
Total economic output was $84.0 billion in current dollars in 2025.
Largest industry groups · 2025
- Real estate and rental and leasing: 15.2%
- Educational services, health care, and social assistance: 13.6%
- Professional and business services: 12.8%
- Government and government enterprises: 12.4%
Share of total current-dollar GDP. These figures measure output, not employment.
Sources: BEA · annual GDP by state, SAGDP2
Production, jobs and wages answer different questions
The industry chart measures the value of production. It does not count workers. An industry with a large share of GDP need not employ the most people or pay the highest wages. Employment and wage data would be needed to answer those questions.
Population & economic trends
Population, 2020–2025
Millions of people1.112025 · millions of people
July 1 resident population estimates, using the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 series.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau
View data table
| Year | People |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 1,096,487 |
| 2021 | 1,097,381 |
| 2022 | 1,098,275 |
| 2023 | 1,101,183 |
| 2024 | 1,110,415 |
| 2025 | 1,114,521 |
Real GDP, 2010–2025
Billions of chained 2017 dollars64.182025 · billions of chained 2017 dollars
Real GDP measures economic output adjusted for inflation. The chart uses BEA’s chained 2017 dollars.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
View data table
| Year | Millions of chained 2017 dollars |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 56,050.6 |
| 2011 | 56,026.6 |
| 2012 | 56,487.4 |
| 2013 | 57,037.2 |
| 2014 | 57,602.7 |
| 2015 | 58,387.9 |
| 2016 | 58,630.0 |
| 2017 | 58,771.6 |
| 2018 | 58,740.1 |
| 2019 | 60,157.6 |
| 2020 | 58,132.3 |
| 2021 | 60,660.0 |
| 2022 | 61,517.3 |
| 2023 | 62,119.3 |
| 2024 | 63,459.1 |
| 2025 | 64,180.1 |
Read the trend, then ask what explains it
Rhode Island’s population increased by about 1.6% between 2020 and 2025 in this series. That shows the size of the change. The chart alone cannot tell us how much came from births, deaths or migration.
Real GDP adjusts for changes in prices, so it helps compare production over time. Current-dollar GDP includes price changes. Neither measure tells us how income is distributed among residents.
Representation
- Electoral votes
- 42024 & 2028 elections
- Voting U.S. House seats
- 22020 Census allocation
- U.S. Senate seats
- 2
Electoral votes equal the state’s U.S. House seats plus its two U.S. Senate seats. These allocations apply to the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.
Practice
Test your knowledge
Use the explanations and data on this page to answer ten questions. Hints and links to the relevant sections are available throughout.
10 questions about Rhode Island
Show a hint
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Sources & notes
Narrative and quiz updated 5 October 2026. Statistical data prepared 27 September 2026. Population: Census Bureau Vintage 2025, July 1 estimates for 2020–2025. Real GDP: BEA annual state accounts, SAGDP9, millions of chained 2017 dollars; industry shares: SAGDP2, current dollars. Data downloaded 27 September 2026. Area measurements include land and water.
Sources: Census · population estimates · BEA · state GDP · Census · area measurements · Natural Earth · map data
The capital clock shows current local time. Statistical figures are dated estimates and may be revised.
Updated 29 October 2026. Statistics retain the dated series shown in the charts; these are not live figures. Sources are linked beside each topic.