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New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the southwest by Delaware, and on the west by Pennsylvania. Parts of New Jersey lie within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York and Philadelphia.
Inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, the first European settlements in the area were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s.
The English later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey, which was granted to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton as a colony. The name was taken from the largest of the English Channel Islands, Jersey. New Jersey was an important site during the American Revolutionary War; several decisive battles were fought there. The winter quarters of the revolutionary army were established twice by George Washington in Morristown, which was called the military capital of revolution.
Later, people who worked in factories in cities such as Paterson and Trenton helped to drive the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. New Jersey's position at the center of the BosWash megalopolis, between Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., fueled its rapid growth through the suburban boom of the 1950s and beyond.
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