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Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the
most populous city The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the city proper, cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or th ...
in the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
of
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was designated an
independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...
by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and today is the most populous independent city in the United States. As of 2021, the population of the
Baltimore metropolitan area The Baltimore–Columbia–Towson Metropolitan Statistical Area, also known as Central Maryland, is a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in Maryland as defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As of the 2010 United Sta ...
was estimated to be 2,838,327, making it the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country. Baltimore is located about north northeast of
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, making it a principal city in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), the third-largest
CSA CSA may refer to: Arts and media * Canadian Screen Awards, annual awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television * Commission on Superhuman Activities, a fictional American government agency in Marvel Comics * Crime Syndicate of Amer ...
in the nation, with a 2021 estimated population of 9,946,526. Prior to
European colonization The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
, the Baltimore region was used as hunting grounds by the
Susquehannock The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
Native Americans, who were primarily settled further northwest than where the city was later built. Colonists from the
Province of Maryland The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryland ...
established the
Port of Baltimore Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities f ...
in 1706 to support the
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
trade with Europe, and established the Town of Baltimore in 1729. The first printing press and newspapers were introduced to Baltimore by Nicholas Hasselbach and William Goddard respectively, in the mid-18th century. The
Battle of Baltimore The Battle of Baltimore (September 12–15, 1814) was a sea/land battle fought between British invaders and American defenders in the War of 1812. American forces repulsed sea and land invasions off the busy port city of Baltimore, Maryland ...
was a pivotal engagement during the
War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, culminating in the failed
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
bombardment of
Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack b ...
, during which
Francis Scott Key Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who wrote the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key observed the British bombardment ...
wrote a poem that would become "
The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...
", which was eventually designated as the American national anthem in 1931. During the Pratt Street Riot of 1861, the city was the site of some of the earliest violence associated with the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. The
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
, the oldest railroad in the United States, was built in 1830 and cemented Baltimore's status as a major transportation hub, giving producers in the
Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
and
Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...
access to the city's
port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...
. Baltimore's
Inner Harbor The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The ...
was once the second leading
port of entry In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has border security staff and facilities to check passports and visas and to inspect luggage to assure that contraband is not imported. Internati ...
for
immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
s to the United States. In addition, Baltimore was a major
manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
center. After a decline in major manufacturing,
heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
, and restructuring of the
rail industry Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...
, Baltimore has shifted to a service-oriented economy.
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
and
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
are the city's top two employers. Baltimore and its surrounding region are home to the headquarters of a number of major organizations and government agencies, including the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
,
ABET The ABET (incorporated as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.) is a non-governmental organization that accredits post-secondary education programs in applied and natural sciences, computing, engineering and engineering ...
, the
National Federation of the Blind The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is an organization of blind people in the United States. It is the oldest and largest organization led by blind people in the United States. Its national headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland. Overvie ...
,
Catholic Relief Services Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the Bishops of the United States, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 110 ...
, the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
World Relief World Relief (officially, World Relief Corporation of National Association of Evangelicals) is an Evangelical Christian humanitarian nongovernmental organization, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals and a leading refug ...
, the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...
, and the
Social Security Administration The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government that administers Social Security (United ...
. Baltimore is also home to the
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
of
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
and the
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
of the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
. Many of Baltimore's neighborhoods have rich histories. The city is home to some of the earliest National Register Historic Districts in the nation, including
Fell's Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, musi ...
, Federal Hill, and
Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...
. These were added to the
National Register The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
between 1969 and 1971, soon after historic preservation legislation was passed. Baltimore has more public statues and monuments per capita than any other city in the country. Nearly one third of the city's buildings (over 65,000) are designated as historic in the National Register, which is more than any other U.S. city. Baltimore has 66 National Register Historic Districts and 33 local historic districts. The historical records of the government of Baltimore are located at the
Baltimore City Archives The Baltimore City Archives is the official municipal archive of the City of Baltimore, Maryland. The archive is located on Mathews Street in the Better Waverly, Baltimore neighborhood. The Baltimore City Archives "is the central depository for ...
.


History


Native American settlement

The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the
10th millennium BC The 10th millennium BC spanned the years 10,000 BC to 9001 BC (c. 12 ka to c. 11 ka). It marks the beginning of the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic via the interim Mesolithic ( Northern Europe and Western Europe) and Epip ...
, when Paleo-Indians first settled in the region. One Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and
Woodland period In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...
archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the
Late Woodland period In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeolog ...
. In December 2021, several Woodland period Native American artifacts were found in
Herring Run Park The Herring Run is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Back River located in Baltimore, Maryland. Geography The watershed has its head ...
in northeast Baltimore, dating 5,000 to 9,000 years ago. The finding followed a period of dormancy in Baltimore City archaeological findings which had persisted since the 1980s. During the Late Woodland period, the
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
known as the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore south to the
Rappahannock River The Rappahannock River is a river in eastern Virginia, in the United States, approximately in length.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 It traverses the entir ...
in present-day
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was sparsely populated, if at all, by Native Americans. The Baltimore County area northward was used as hunting grounds by the
Susquehannock The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
living in the lower
Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River (; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the ...
valley. This Iroquoian-speaking people "controlled all of the upper tributaries of the Chesapeake" but "refrained from much contact with
Powhatan The Powhatan people (; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia. All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan ...
in the Potomac region" and south into Virginia. Pressured by the Susquehannock, the
Piscataway tribe The Piscataway or Piscatawa , are Native Americans. They spoke Algonquian Piscataway, a dialect of Nanticoke. One of their neighboring tribes, with whom they merged after a massive decline of population following two centuries of interactions ...
, an Algonquian-speaking people, stayed well south of the Baltimore area and inhabited primarily the north bank of the
Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...
in what are now
Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...
and southern Prince George's counties in the coastal areas south of the
Fall Line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...
.


Etymology

The city is named after The 2nd Baron Baltimore Cecil Calvert, an
Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
member of the
Irish House of Lords The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland. It was modelled on the House of Lords of England, with membe ...
and founding proprietor of the
Province of Maryland The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryland ...
. Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in
County Longford County Longford ( gle, Contae an Longfoirt) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Longford. Longford County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county was 46,6 ...
which the Calvert family, Barons Baltimore, owned in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. Baltimore is an
anglicization Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by Culture of England, English culture or Culture of the United Kingdom, British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English ...
of the
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
name ''Baile an Tí Mhóir'', meaning "town of the big house".


Colonial period

European colonization The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
of Maryland began in earnest with the arrival of the merchant ship '' The Ark'' carrying 140 colonists at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River on March 25, 1634. Europeans then began to settle the area further north, in what is now
Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...
.Brooks & Rockel (1979), pp. 1–3. Since Maryland was a colony, Baltimore's streets were named to show loyalty to the mother country, e.g. King, Queen, King George and Caroline streets. The original
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...
, known today as Old Baltimore, was located on Bush River within the present-day
Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at ...
. The colonists engaged in sporadic warfare with the Susquehannock, whose numbers dwindled primarily from new infectious diseases, such as
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
, endemic among the Europeans. In 1661 David Jones claimed the area known today as
Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...
on the east bank of the
Jones Falls The Jones Falls is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 stream in Maryland. It is impounded to create Lake Roland before running through the city of Baltim ...
stream. The colonial
General Assembly of Maryland The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber ...
created the
Port of Baltimore Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities f ...
at old Whetstone Point (now Locust Point) in 1706 for the tobacco trade. The Town of Baltimore, on the west side of the Jones Falls, was founded and laid out on July 30, 1729. By 1752 the town had just 27 homes, including a church and two taverns. Jonestown and Fells Point had been settled to the east. The three settlements, covering , became a commercial hub, and in 1768 were designated as the county seat. The first printing press was introduced to the city in 1765 by Nicholas Hasselbach, whose equipment was later used in the printing of Baltimore's first newspapers, ''The Maryland Journal'' and ''The Baltimore Advertiser'', first published by William Goddard in 1773. Wroth, 1938, p. 41 Baltimore grew swiftly in the 18th century, its plantations producing grain and tobacco for sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean. The profit from sugar encouraged the cultivation of cane in the Caribbean and the importation of food by planters there. Since Baltimore was the county seat, a courthouse was built in 1768 to serve both the city and county. Its square was a center of community meetings and discussions. Baltimore established its public market system in 1763.
Lexington Market Lexington Market is a historic market in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The market is now housed in a 60,000-square-foot market shed building completed in 2022 that is home to 50 merchants and kiosks. The market has occupied many market buildings ...
, founded in 1782, is known as one of the oldest continuously operating public markets in the United States today. Lexington Market was also a center of slave trading. Enslaved Black people were sold at numerous sites through the downtown area, with sales advertised in ''The Baltimore Sun''. Both tobacco and sugar cane were labor-intensive crops. In 1774, Baltimore established the first post office system in what became the United States, and the first water company chartered in the newly independent nation (Baltimore Water Company, 1792). Baltimore played a key part in the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. City leaders such as Jonathan Plowman Jr. led many residents to resist British taxes, and merchants signed agreements refusing to trade with Britain. The
Second Continental Congress The Second Continental Congress was a late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolutionary War. The Congress was creating a new country it first named "United Colonies" and in 1 ...
met in the
Henry Fite House The "Henry Fite House", located on West Baltimore Street (then known as Market Street), between South Sharp and North Liberty Streets (also later known as Hopkins Place), in Baltimore, Maryland, was the meeting site of the Second Continental Co ...
from December 1776 to February 1777, effectively making the city the
capital of the United States This is a list of capital cities of the United States, including places that serve or have served as federal, state, insular area, territorial, colonial and Native American capitals. Washington has been the federal capital of the United Stat ...
during this period.


Post-revolutionary period

The towns of Baltimore, Jonestown, and Fells Point were incorporated as the City of Baltimore in 1796–1797. The city remained a part of surrounding
Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...
and continued to serve as its county seat from 1768 to 1851, after which it became an
independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...
. The
Battle of Baltimore The Battle of Baltimore (September 12–15, 1814) was a sea/land battle fought between British invaders and American defenders in the War of 1812. American forces repulsed sea and land invasions off the busy port city of Baltimore, Maryland ...
against the British in 1814 inspired the U.S. national anthem, "
The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...
", and the construction of the
Battle Monument The Battle Monument, located in Battle Monument Square on North Calvert Street between East Fayette and East Lexington Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, commemorates the Battle of Baltimore with the British fleet of the Royal Navy's bombardment ...
, which became the city's official emblem. A distinctive local culture started to take shape, and a unique skyline peppered with churches and monuments developed. Baltimore acquired its moniker "The Monumental City" after an 1827 visit to Baltimore by President
John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States S ...
. At an evening function, Adams gave the following toast: "Baltimore: the Monumental City—May the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy, as the days of her dangers have been trying and triumphant." Baltimore pioneered the use of
gas lighting Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directl ...
in 1816, and its population grew rapidly in the following decades, with concomitant development of culture and infrastructure. The construction of the federally funded
National Road The National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road) was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the Federal Government of the United States, federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the road connected the Pot ...
(which later became part of U.S. Route 40) and the private
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
(B. & O.) made Baltimore a major shipping and
manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
center by linking the city with major markets in the
Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
. By 1820 its population had reached 60,000, and its economy had shifted from its base in tobacco plantations to
sawmilling A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
,
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befor ...
, and
textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
production. These industries benefited from war but successfully shifted into
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
development during peacetime. Baltimore had one of the worst riots of the antebellum
South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
in 1835, when bad investments led to the
Baltimore bank riot The Baltimore bank riot of 1835 in the major port city of Maryland was a violent reaction to the failure of the Bank of Maryland in 1834. Thousands of citizens had lost millions of dollars in savings. The riot, which lasted from 6 to 9 August, at ...
. It was these riots that led to the city being
nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
d "Mobtown". Soon after the city created the world's first dental college, the
Baltimore College of Dental Surgery The University of Maryland School of Dentistry is the dental school of the University System of Maryland. It was founded as an independent institution, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, in 1840 and was the birthplace of the Doctor of Denta ...
, in 1840, and shared in the world's first telegraph line, between Baltimore and Washington, DC, in 1844.


Civil War through the 19th century

Maryland, a
slave state In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...
with limited popular support for
secession Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
, especially in the three counties of Southern Maryland, remained part of the
Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, following the 55-12 vote by the Maryland General Assembly against secession. Later, the Union's strategic occupation of the city in 1861 ensured Maryland would not further consider secession. The Union's capital,
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, then in the state of Maryland, was well-situated to impede Baltimore and Maryland's communication or commerce with the Confederacy. Baltimore saw the first casualties of the war on April 19, 1861, when Union soldiers en route from the
President Street Station The President Street Station in Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, is a former train station and railroad terminal. Built in 1849 and opened in February 1850, the station saw Baltimore riot of 1861, some of the earliest bloodshed of the Ame ...
to
Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early ...
clashed with a secessionist mob in the Pratt Street riot. In the midst of the
Long Depression The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing st ...
that followed the
Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Lon ...
, the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
company attempted to lower its workers' wages, leading to strikes and riots in the city and
beyond Beyond may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Beyond'' (1921 film), an American silent film * ''Beyond'' (2000 film), a Danish film directed by Åke Sandgren, OT: ''Dykkerne'' * ''Beyond'' (2010 film), a Swedish film directed b ...
. Strikers clashed with the
National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...
, leaving 10 dead and 25 wounded. The beginnings of
settlement movement The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
work in Baltimore were made early in 1893, when Rev. Dr. Edward A. Lawrence took up lodgings with his friend Frank Thompson, in one of the Winans tenements, the Lawrence House being established shortly thereafter at 814-816 West Lombard Street.


20th century through 1968

On February 7, 1904, the
Great Baltimore Fire The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland from Sunday, February 7, to Monday, February 8, 1904. More than 1,500 buildings were completely leveled, and some 1,000 severely damaged, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimate ...
destroyed over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours, leaving more than 70 blocks of the downtown area burned to the ground. Damages were estimated at $150 million in 1904 dollars. As the city rebuilt during the next two years, lessons learned from the fire led to improvements in firefighting equipment standards. Baltimore lawyer Milton Dashiell advocated for an ordinance to bar African-Americans from moving into the
Eutaw Place Eutaw Street is a major street in Baltimore, Maryland, mostly within the downtown area. Outside of downtown, it is mostly known as Eutaw Place. The south end of Eutaw Street is at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. After this point, the street continue ...
neighborhood in northwest Baltimore. He proposed to recognize majority white residential blocks and majority black residential blocks and to prevent people from moving into housing on such blocks where they would be a minority. The Baltimore Council passed the ordinance, and it became law on December 20, 1910, with Democratic Mayor J. Barry Mahool's signature. The Baltimore segregation ordinance was the first of its kind in the United States. Many other southern cities followed with their own segregation ordinances, though the US Supreme Court ruled against them in ''
Buchanan v. Warley ''Buchanan v. Warley'', 245 U.S. 60 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States addressed civil government-instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held unanimously that a Louisville, Kentucky city ordin ...
'' (1917). The city grew in area by annexing new suburbs from the surrounding counties through 1918, when the city acquired portions of Baltimore County and
Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel County (; ), also notated as AA or A.A. County, is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 588,261, an increase of just under 10% since 2010. Its county seat is Annapolis, whi ...
. A state constitutional amendment, approved in 1948, required a special vote of the citizens in any proposed annexation area, effectively preventing any future expansion of the city's boundaries.
Streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
s enabled the development of distant neighborhoods areas such as Edmonson Village whose residents could easily commute to work downtown. Driven by migration from the
deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...
and by white suburbanization, the relative size of the city's
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
population grew from 23.8% in 1950 to 46.4% in 1970. Encouraged by real estate
blockbusting Blockbusting was a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced white residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the ho ...
techniques, recently settled white areas rapidly became all-black neighborhoods, in a rapid process which was nearly total by 1970.


1968 and after

The
Baltimore riot of 1968 The Baltimore riot of 1968 was a period of civil unrest that lasted from April 6 to April 14, 1968, in Baltimore. The uprising included crowds filling the streets, burning and looting local businesses, and confronting the police and national gua ...
, coinciding with uprisings in other cities, followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Public order was not restored until April 12, 1968. The Baltimore uprising cost the city an estimated $10 million (US$ million in ). A total of 12,000 Maryland National Guard and federal troops were ordered into the city. The city experienced challenges again in 1974 when teachers, municipal workers, and
police officers A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...
conducted strikes. Following the
death of Freddie Gray On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department over his legal possession of a knife. While being transported in a police van, Gray sustained injuries and was taken to ...
in April 2015, the city experienced major protests and international media attention, as well as a clash between local youth and police that resulted in a
state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
declaration and a curfew. Baltimore has had a high homicide rate for several decades, peaking in 1993, and again in 2015. These deaths have taken an especially severe toll within the black community.


Development and promotion

By the beginning of the 1970s, Baltimore's downtown area, known as the Inner Harbor, had been neglected and was occupied by a collection of abandoned warehouses. The nickname "Charm City" came from a 1975 meeting of advertisers seeking to improve the city's reputation. Efforts to redevelop the area started with the construction of the
Maryland Science Center The Maryland Science Center, located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, opened to the public in 1976. It includes three levels of exhibits, a planetarium, and an observatory. It was one of the original structures that drove the revitalization of the ...
, which opened in 1976, the
Baltimore World Trade Center Located on the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, the Baltimore World Trade Center is the world's tallest regular pentagonal-based skyscraper (the pentagonal-based JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston is taller, but is not regular). It was designed ...
(1977), and the
Baltimore Convention Center The Baltimore Convention Center is a convention and exhibition hall located in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The center is a municipal building owned and operated by the City of Baltimore. The facility was constructed in two separate phases: th ...
(1979).
Harborplace Harborplace is a shopping complex on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. Description The property is composed of 2 two-story pavilions: the Pratt Street Pavilion and the Light Street Pavilion. Each of these buildings contains many stores an ...
, an urban retail and restaurant complex, opened on the waterfront in 1980, followed by the National Aquarium, Maryland's largest tourist destination, and the Baltimore Museum of Industry in 1981. In 1995, the city opened the
American Visionary Art Museum The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland's Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway Maryland Route 2 (MD 2) is the longest state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs fro ...
on Federal Hill. During the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Baltimore City Health Department official Robert Mehl persuaded the city's mayor to form a committee to address food problems; the Baltimore-based charity
Moveable Feast A moveable feast is an observance in a Christian liturgical calendar which occurs on different dates in different years.John Ayto ''Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms'' 2010 p123 019954378X "a movable feast an event which takes place at no reg ...
grew out of this initiative in 1990. By 2010, the organization's region of service had expanded from merely Baltimore to include all of the
Eastern Shore of Maryland The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a part of the U.S. state of Maryland that lies mostly on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. Nine counties are normally included in the region. The Eastern Shore is part of the larger Delmarva Peninsula that ...
. In 1992, the
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
baseball team Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding te ...
moved from Memorial Stadium to
Oriole Park at Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the Baseball park#Retro-classic ballparks, "retro" major league ballparks ...
, located downtown near the harbor.
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
held an open-air mass at Camden Yards during his papal visit to the United States in October 1995. Three years later the
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...
moved into
M&T Bank Stadium M&T Bank Stadium is a multi-purpose football stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium is immediately adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the ...
next to Camden Yards. Baltimore has seen the reopening of the Hippodrome Theatre in 2004, the opening of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in 2005, and the establishment of the
National Slavic Museum The National Slavic Museum in Fell's Point, Baltimore is a museum dedicated to the documentation of the Polish and Slavic heritage of Baltimore, including Baltimore's Belarusian, Bulgarian, Carpatho-Rusyn, Croatian, Czech, Lemko, Moravian, Ru ...
in 2012. On April 12, 2012, Johns Hopkins held a dedication ceremony to mark the completion of one of the United States' largest medical complexes – the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore – which features the Sheikh Zayed Cardiovascular and Critical Care Tower and The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center. The event, held at the entrance to the $1.1 billion 1.6 million-square-foot-facility, honored the many donors including
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan ( ar,  خليفة بن زايد بن سلطان آل نهيان‎; 7 September 1948 – 13 May 2022) was the second president of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, serving from ...
, first president of the
United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
, and
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
. On September 19, 2016, the Baltimore City Council approved a $660 million bond deal for the $5.5 billion
Port Covington Port Covington is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Previously, Port Covington was a railroad terminal built by the Western Maryland Railway in 1904 on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. The terminal facilities included coal, grain an ...
redevelopment project championed by
Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...
founder
Kevin Plank Kevin Audette Plank (born August 13, 1972) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Plank is the founder and executive chairman of Under Armour, a manufacturer of sportswear, footwear and accessories, based in Baltimore, Maryland ...
and his real estate company Sagamore Development. Port Covington surpassed the Harbor Point development as the largest
tax-increment financing Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects in many countries, including the United States. The original intent of a TIF program is ...
deal in Baltimore's history and among the largest urban redevelopment projects in the country. The waterfront development that includes the new headquarters for Under Armour, as well as shops, housing, offices, and manufacturing spaces is projected to create 26,500 permanent jobs with a $4.3 billion annual economic impact.
Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
invested $233 million into the redevelopment project.


Geography

Baltimore is in north-central Maryland on the
Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...
close to where it empties into the
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...
. The city is also located on the
fall line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...
between the
Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
Plateau and the
Atlantic coastal plain The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...
, which divides Baltimore into "lower city" and "upper city". The city's elevation ranges from sea level at the harbor to in the northwest corner near
Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...
. According to the 2010 Census, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The total area is 12.1 percent water. Baltimore is almost surrounded by Baltimore County, but is politically independent of it. It is bordered by
Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel County (; ), also notated as AA or A.A. County, is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 588,261, an increase of just under 10% since 2010. Its county seat is Annapolis, whi ...
to the south.


Cityscape


Architecture

Baltimore exhibits examples from each period of architecture over more than two centuries, and work from architects such as
Benjamin Latrobe Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe (May 1, 1764 – September 3, 1820) was an Anglo-American neoclassical architect who emigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects in the new United States, draw ...
,
George A. Frederick George Aloysius Frederick (December 16, 1842 – August 17, 1924) was a German-American architect with a practice in Baltimore, Maryland, where his most prominent commission was the Baltimore City Hall (1867–1875), awarded him when he was ...
,
John Russell Pope John Russell Pope (April 24, 1874 – August 27, 1937) was an American architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building (completed in 1935), the Jeffe ...
,
Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...
and
I. M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
. The city is rich in architecturally significant buildings in a variety of styles. The
Baltimore Basilica The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called the Baltimore Basilica, was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States, and was among the first major religious buildings construc ...
(1806–1821) is a neoclassical design by Benjamin Latrobe, and one of the oldest Catholic cathedrals in the United States. In 1813 Robert Cary Long Sr. built for
Rembrandt Peale Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style w ...
the first substantial structure in the United States designed expressly as a museum. Restored, it is now the Municipal Museum of Baltimore, or popularly the
Peale Museum The Peale, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is Baltimore's Community Museum. Its mission is to evolve the role of museums in society by providing local creators and storytellers with the space and support the need to realize a complete and accessi ...
. The
McKim Free School McKim's School, also known as McKim's Free School, is a historic school located at Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is an archaeologically accurate Greek Revival architecture, Greek-style building. The front façade is designed after the Tem ...
was founded and endowed by John McKim. However, the building was erected by his son
Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...
in 1822 after a design by William Howard and William Small. It reflects the popular interest in
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
when the nation was securing its independence and a scholarly interest in recently published drawings of Athenian antiquities. The
Phoenix Shot Tower The Phoenix Shot Tower, also known as the Old Baltimore Shot Tower, is a red brick shot tower, tall, located near the downtown, Jonestown (also known later as Old Town), and Little Italy communities of East Baltimore, in Maryland. When it was c ...
(1828), at tall, was the tallest building in the United States until the time of the Civil War, and is one of few remaining structures of its kind. It was constructed without the use of exterior scaffolding. The Sun Iron Building, designed by R.C. Hatfield in 1851, was the city's first iron-front building and was a model for a whole generation of downtown buildings.
Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., is a large, Gothic Revival-style church built in 1870 and located at Park Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in the city's Bolton Hill neighborhood. Named in memory of a Bal ...
, built in 1870 in memory of financier
George Brown George Brown may refer to: Arts and entertainment * George Loring Brown (1814–1889), American landscape painter * George Douglas Brown (1869–1902), Scottish novelist * George Williams Brown (1894–1963), Canadian historian and editor * G ...
, has
stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
windows by
Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...
and has been called "one of the most significant buildings in this city, a treasure of art and architecture" by ''
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
'' magazine. The 1845
Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
-style
Lloyd Street Synagogue The Lloyd Street Synagogue is an 1845 Greek Revival style synagogue building in Baltimore, Maryland. One of the oldest synagogues in the United States, Lloyd Street was the first synagogue building erected in Maryland and is the third oldest synag ...
is one of the
oldest synagogues in the United States Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...
. The
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
, designed by Lt. Col. John S. Billings in 1876, was a considerable achievement for its day in functional arrangement and fireproofing. I.M. Pei's
World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
(1977) is the tallest equilateral pentagonal building in the world at tall. The
Harbor East Inner Harbor East, now more recently referred to more commonly as simply as Harbor East, is a relatively new mixed-use development project in Baltimore, Maryland, United States along the northern shoreline of the Northwest Branch of the Pataps ...
area has seen the addition of two new towers which have completed construction: a 24-floor tower that is the new world headquarters of
Legg Mason Legg Mason was an American investment management and asset management firm headquartered in Baltimore, founded in 1899 and acquired by Franklin Templeton Investments as of July 2020. As of December 31, 2019, the company had $730.8 billion in asse ...
, and a 21-floor
Four Seasons Hotel Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is an international luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide.D ...
complex. The streets of Baltimore are organized in a grid and spoke pattern, lined with tens of thousands of brick and formstone-faced
rowhouses In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house (British English, UK) or townhouse (American English, US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings party ...
. In ''The Baltimore Rowhouse'', Mary Ellen Hayward and
Charles Belfoure Charles Belfoure (born 19 February 1954) is an American writer, architect and historian specializing in historic preservation, author of several histories and fiction works, including ''The New York Times'' best-selling novel '' The Paris Archit ...
considered the rowhouse as the architectural form defining Baltimore as "perhaps no other American city". In the mid-1790s, developers began building entire neighborhoods of the British-style rowhouses, which became the dominant house type of the city early in the 19th century. Formstone facings,once a common feature on Baltimore rowhouses, were an addition patented in 1937 by Albert Knight.
John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...
characterized formstone as "the polyester of brick" in a 30-minute documentary film, ''Little Castles: A Formstone Phenomenon''.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the Baseball park#Retro-classic ballparks, "retro" major league ballparks ...
is a Major League Baseball park, opened in 1992, which was built as a
retro style Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from history, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. In popular culture, the "nostalgia cycle" is typically for the two decades that begin 20–30 ...
baseball park A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...
. Camden Yards, along with the National Aquarium, have helped revive the Inner Harbor from what once was an
industrial district Industrial district concept was initially used by Alfred Marshall to describe some aspects of the industrial organisation of nations. Industrial district (ID) is a place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary indu ...
full of dilapidated warehouses into a bustling commercial district full of bars, restaurants and retail establishments. After an international competition, the
University of Baltimore School of Law The University of Baltimore School of Law, or the UB School of Law, is one of the four colleges that make up the University of Baltimore, which is part of the University System of Maryland. The UBalt School of Law is one of only two law schools i ...
awarded the German firm
Behnisch Architekten Behnisch Architekten is an architectural practice based in Stuttgart, Germany, with branches in Munich, Germany; Boston, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California. The office was founded in 1989 by Stefan Behnisch, son of the well-known German ...
1st prize for its design, which was selected for the school's new home. After the building's opening in 2013, the design won additional honors including an ENR National "Best of the Best" Award. Baltimore's newly rehabilitated Everyman Theatre was honored by the Baltimore Heritage at the 2013 Preservation Awards Celebration in 2013. Everyman Theatre will receive an Adaptive Reuse and Compatible Design Award as part of Baltimore Heritage's 2013 historic preservation awards ceremony. Baltimore Heritage is Baltimore's nonprofit historic and architectural preservation organization, which works to preserve and promote Baltimore's historic buildings and neighborhoods.


Tallest buildings


Neighborhoods

Baltimore is officially divided into nine geographical regions: North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest, and Central, with each district patrolled by a respective
Baltimore Police Department The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is the municipal police department of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Dating back to 1784, the BPD, consisting of 2,935 employees in 2020, is organized into nine districts covering of land and of waterway ...
.
Interstate 83 Interstate 83 (I-83) is an Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its southern terminus is at a signalized intersection with Fayette Street in Baltimore, Maryland; its northern terminus is at Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania, I-81 near H ...
and Charles Street down to Hanover Street and Ritchie Highway serve as the east–west dividing line and Eastern Avenue to
Route 40 The following highways are numbered 40: International * European route E40 Argentina * National Route 40 Australia * NSW State Route 40 (Windsor Road and Victoria Road in Sydney) * Victorian State Route 40 * Mulligan Highway (Queensland) Br ...
as the north–south dividing line; however,
Baltimore Street This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
is north–south dividing line for the
U.S. Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
.


=Central Baltimore

= Central Baltimore, originally called the Middle District, stretches north of the Inner Harbor up to the edge of
Druid Hill Park Druid Hill Park is a urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive (north), Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road (west and south), and the Jones Falls Expressway / Interstate 83 (east). Still the city's main commercial area and business district, it includes Baltimore's sports complexes:
Oriole Park at Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the Baseball park#Retro-classic ballparks, "retro" major league ballparks ...
,
M&T Bank Stadium M&T Bank Stadium is a multi-purpose football stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium is immediately adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the ...
, and the
Royal Farms Arena CFG Bank Arena (originally the Baltimore Civic Center and formerly Royal Farms Arena, Baltimore Arena and 1st Mariner Arena) is a multipurpose arena in Baltimore, Maryland. This venue is located about one block away from the Baltimore Convention ...
; and the shops and attractions in the Inner Harbor:
Harborplace Harborplace is a shopping complex on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. Description The property is composed of 2 two-story pavilions: the Pratt Street Pavilion and the Light Street Pavilion. Each of these buildings contains many stores an ...
, the
Baltimore Convention Center The Baltimore Convention Center is a convention and exhibition hall located in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The center is a municipal building owned and operated by the City of Baltimore. The facility was constructed in two separate phases: th ...
, the National Aquarium,
Maryland Science Center The Maryland Science Center, located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, opened to the public in 1976. It includes three levels of exhibits, a planetarium, and an observatory. It was one of the original structures that drove the revitalization of the ...
,
Pier Six Pavilion Pier Six Pavilion is a music venue located in Baltimore, Maryland. The waterfront venue is located on Pier Six of the Inner Harbor and opened in 1981. History The venue opened in 1981 as a temporary structure known as the "Harbor Lights Concert ...
, and
Power Plant Live Power Plant Live! is a collection of bars, restaurants and other businesses in the Inner Harbor section of downtown Baltimore, Maryland. It was developed by The Cordish Companies and opened in phases during 2001, 2002, and 2003. The entertainmen ...
. The
University of Maryland, Baltimore The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1807, it comprises some of the oldest professional schools of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy, social work and nursing in the United States ...
, the
University of Maryland Medical Center The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) is a teaching hospital with 806 beds based in Baltimore, Maryland, that provides the full range of health care to people throughout Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region. It gets more than 26,000 inpa ...
, and
Lexington Market Lexington Market is a historic market in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The market is now housed in a 60,000-square-foot market shed building completed in 2022 that is home to 50 merchants and kiosks. The market has occupied many market buildings ...
are also in the central district, as well as the
Hippodrome The hippodrome ( el, ἱππόδρομος) was an ancient Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words ''hippos'' (ἵππος; "horse") and ''dromos'' (δρόμος; "course"). The term is used i ...
and many nightclubs, bars, restaurants, shopping centers and various other attractions. The northern portion of Central Baltimore, between downtown and the Druid Hill Park, is home to many of the city's cultural opportunities.
Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...
, the
Peabody Institute The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...
(music conservatory),
George Peabody Library The George Peabody Library is a library connected to the Johns Hopkins University, focused on research into the 19th century. It was formerly the Library of the Peabody Institute of music in the City of Baltimore, and is located on the Peabody c ...
,
Enoch Pratt Free Library The Enoch Pratt Free Library is the free public library system of Baltimore, Maryland. Its Central Library and office headquarters are located on 400 Cathedral Street (southbound) and occupy the northeastern three quarters of a city block bound ...
– Central Library, the
Lyric Opera House The Lyric Performing Arts Center is a music venue in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, located close to the University of Baltimore law school. The building was modeled after the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam, and it was inaugurate ...
, the
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall The Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, often referred to simply as the Meyerhoff, is a music venue that opened September 16, 1982, at 1212 Cathedral Street in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The main auditorium ...
, the
Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
, the
Maryland Center for History and Culture The Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC), formerly the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS), . founded on March 1, 1844, is the oldest cultural institution in the U.S. state of Maryland. The organization "collects, preserves, and inte ...
and its
Enoch Pratt Enoch Pratt (September 10, 1808 – September 17, 1896) was an American businessman in Baltimore, Maryland. Pratt was also a committed active Unitarian, and a philanthropist. He is best known for his donations to establish the Enoch Pratt Free ...
Mansion, and several galleries are located in this region.


=North Baltimore

= Several historic and notable neighborhoods are in this district: Govans (1755),
Roland Park Roland Park is a community located in Baltimore, Maryland. It was developed between 1890 and 1920 as an upper-class streetcar suburb. The early phases of the neighborhood were designed by Edward Bouton and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. History J ...
(1891), Guilford (1913),
Homeland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethni ...
(1924), Hampden, Woodberry, Old Goucher (the original campus of
Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...
), and
Jones Falls The Jones Falls is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 stream in Maryland. It is impounded to create Lake Roland before running through the city of Baltim ...
. Along the York Road corridor going north are the large neighborhoods of
Charles Village Charles Village is a neighborhood located in the north-central area of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is a diverse, eclectic, international, largely middle-class area with many single-family homes that is in proximity to many of Baltimore's cultural ...
, Waverly, and
Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...
. The
Station North Arts and Entertainment District The Station North Arts and Entertainment District (often referred to as just Station North) is an area and official arts and entertainment district in the U.S. city of Baltimore, Maryland. The neighborhood is marked by a combination of artistica ...
is also located in North Baltimore.


=South Baltimore

= South Baltimore, a mixed industrial and residential area, consists of the "Old South Baltimore" peninsula below the Inner Harbor and east of the old
B&O Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
's Camden line tracks and Russell Street downtown. It is a culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse waterfront area with neighborhoods such as Locust Point and Riverside around a large park of the same name. Just south of the Inner Harbor, the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, is home to many working professionals, pubs and restaurants. At the end of the peninsula is historic
Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack b ...
, a National Park since the end of World War I, when the old U.S. Army Hospital surrounding the 1798 star-shaped battlements was torn down. Across the Hanover Street Bridge are residential areas such as Cherry Hill.


=Northeast Baltimore

= Northeast is primarily a residential neighborhood, home to
Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...
, bounded by the city line of 1919 on its northern and eastern boundaries,
Sinclair Lane This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
, Erdman Avenue, and Pulaski Highway to the south and The Alameda on to the west. Also in this wedge of the city on 33rd Street is
Baltimore City College Baltimore City College, known colloquially as City, City College, and B.C.C., is a college preparatory school with a liberal arts focus and selective admissions criteria located in Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in October 1839, B.C.C. is the thir ...
high school, third oldest active public secondary school in the United States, founded downtown in 1839. Across
Loch Raven Boulevard Maryland Route 542 (MD 542) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as Loch Raven Boulevard, the state highway runs from MD 147 in Baltimore north to Interstate 695 (I-695) and Cromwell Bridge Road near T ...
is the former site of the old Memorial Stadium home of the
Baltimore Colts The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from its founding in 1953 to 1984. The team now plays in Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis Colts. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breed ...
,
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
, and
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
, now replaced by a
YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
athletic and housing complex. Lake Montebello is in Northeast Baltimore.


=East Baltimore

= Located below
Sinclair Lane This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
and Erdman Avenue, above Orleans Street, East Baltimore is mainly made up of residential neighborhoods. This section of East Baltimore is home to
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...
, and
Johns Hopkins Children's Center Johns Hopkins Children's Center (JHCC) is a nationally ranked, pediatric acute care children's teaching hospital located in Baltimore, Maryland, adjacent to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital has 196 pediatric beds and is affiliated the Johns Ho ...
on
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
. Notable neighborhoods include:
Armistead Gardens Armistead Gardens is a neighborhood in the Northeast District of Baltimore. It is located north of Pulaski Highway and east of Erdman Avenue, between Herring Run Park (northeast) and the East District neighborhood of Orangeville (southwest). Ar ...
, Broadway East,
Barclay Barclay may refer to: People * Barclay (surname) * Clan Barclay Places * Barclay, Kansas * Barclay, Maryland, a town in Queen Anne's County * Barclay, Baltimore, Maryland, a neighborhood * Barclay, Nevada, a town in Lincoln County * Barclay, ...
,
Ellwood Park Ellwood Park is a neighborhood in the eastern part of Baltimore, Maryland. It is named for a small public park with a playground between Jefferson and Orleans Streets. The neighborhood extends from Linwood Avenue and Haven Street, between Monum ...
, Greenmount, and
McElderry Park McElderry Park is a neighborhood in the northern part of the southeastern district of the City of Baltimore. Its boundaries are marked by Fayette Street (Baltimore), East Fayette Street, Monument Street (Baltimore), East Monument Street, Linwood Av ...
. This area was the on-site film location for '' Homicide: Life on the Street'', ''
The Corner ''The Corner'' is a 2000 HBO drama television miniseries based on the nonfiction book '' The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood'' (1997) by David Simon and Ed Burns, and adapted for television by David Simon and David Mill ...
'' and ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...
''.


=Southeast Baltimore

= Southeast Baltimore, located below
Fayette Street This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
, bordering the Inner Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the
Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...
to the west, the city line of 1919 on its eastern boundaries and the Patapsco River to the south, is a mixed industrial and residential area.
Patterson Park Patterson Park is an urban park in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland, United States, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Canton, Highlandtown, Patterson Park, and Butchers Hill. It is bordered by East Baltimore Street, Eastern Avenue, South Pat ...
, the "Best Backyard in Baltimore", as well as the Highlandtown Arts District, and
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (abbreviated JHBMC or Bayview; formerly Francis Scott Key Medical Center and Baltimore City Hospitals) is teaching hospital trauma center, neonatal intensive care unit, geriatrics center, and is home to the Johns ...
are located in Southeast Baltimore. The Shops at Canton Crossing opened in 2013. The Canton neighborhood, is located along Baltimore's prime waterfront. Other historic neighborhoods include:
Fells Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...
,
Patterson Park Patterson Park is an urban park in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland, United States, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Canton, Highlandtown, Patterson Park, and Butchers Hill. It is bordered by East Baltimore Street, Eastern Avenue, South Pat ...
, Butchers Hill, Highlandtown,
Greektown Greektown is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Greeks or people of Greek ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. History The oldest Greek dominated neighborhood outside of Greece were probably the Fener in Istanbu ...
,
Harbor East Inner Harbor East, now more recently referred to more commonly as simply as Harbor East, is a relatively new mixed-use development project in Baltimore, Maryland, United States along the northern shoreline of the Northwest Branch of the Pataps ...
,
Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...
, and
Upper Fell's Point Upper Fells Point, also known as "Fells Prospect," is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Col ...
.


=Northwest Baltimore

= Northwestern is bounded by the county line to the north and west,
Gwynns Falls Parkway Windsor Mill Road is a road that runs through parts of Baltimore, Maryland and its western suburb Woodlawn. The road starts as a one-way street named Edgewood Street, then makes a slight left corner and becomes Windsor Mill Road. The road, which ...
on the south and
Pimlico Road This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
on the east, is home to
Pimlico Race Course Pimlico Race Course is a thoroughbred horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Ol ...
, Sinai Hospital, and the headquarters of the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
. Its neighborhoods are mostly residential and are dissected by Northern Parkway. The area has been the center of Baltimore's Jewish community since after World War II. Notable neighborhoods include:
Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...
,
Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...
, and Cheswolde, and Park Heights.


=West Baltimore

= West Baltimore is west of downtown and the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and is bounded by Gwynns Falls Parkway, Fremont Avenue, and
West Baltimore Street West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
. The
Old West Baltimore Historic District Old West Baltimore Historic District is a national historic district in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is primarily a row house neighborhood of approximately 175 city blocks directly northwest of downtown Baltimore. The district includ ...
includes the neighborhoods of
Harlem Park Harlem Park was an amusement park and Chautauqua site in Rockford, Illinois that operated from 1891 to 1928. It was located on 47 wooded acres (0.2 km2) east of Harlem Blvd. on the west bank of the Rock River on Rockford's north side. The ...
, Sandtown-Winchester,
Druid Heights Druid Heights was a bohemian community in Marin County, California, USA, founded in 1954 by poet Elsa Gidlow, her partner Isabel Quallo, and carpenter Roger Somers. The community was a popular retreat for various countercultural movements and ...
, Madison Park, and Upton. Originally a predominantly German neighborhood, by the last half of the 19th century, Old West Baltimore was home to a substantial section of the city's black population. It became the largest neighborhood for the city's black community and its cultural, political, and economic center.
Coppin State University Coppin State University (Coppin) is a public historically black university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is part of the University System of Maryland and a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. In terms of demographics, the Coppin State stu ...
,
Mondawmin Mall Mondawmin Mall is a three-level shopping mall in West Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The mall was a development of the Mondawmin Corporation, a firm set up in 1952 by James Rouse and Hunter Moss under the Moss-Rouse Company. When it first ope ...
, and Edmondson Village are located in this district. The area's crime problems have provided subject material for television series, such as ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...
''. Local organizations, such as the Sandtown Habitat for Humanity and the Upton Planning Committee, have been steadily transforming parts of formerly blighted areas of West Baltimore into clean, safe communities.


=Southwest Baltimore

= Southwest Baltimore is bound by the Baltimore County line to the west, West
Baltimore Street This is a list of notable streets in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. A B C D E F G H Heath St. Route 64. (MTA Maryland) K L M N O P R Ramsay st S U W Y Numbered streets In Balt ...
to the north, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Russell Street/Baltimore-Washington Parkway (Maryland Route 295) to the east. Notable neighborhoods in Southwest Baltimore include: Pigtown, Carrollton Ridge, Ridgely's Delight,
Leakin Park Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is the largest woodland park in an East Coast of the United States, East Coast city, constituting a contiguous area of . Envisioned as a "stream valley park" to protect Baltimore's watersheds like the Gwynns Falls from ...
,
Violetville Violetville (also known as the Village of Violetville) is a neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore, Maryland and Baltimore County. The community is characterized by its "well-kept 1950s and 60s era rowhouses and older farmhouses that date back to the ...
, Lakeland, and Morrell Park. St. Agnes Hospital on
Wilkens Wilkens is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Andrea Wilkens (born 1984), German footballer * Carl Wilkens (born c. 1957), American involved in genocide rescue efforts * Elmer Wilkens (1901–1967), American football player * H ...
and Caton avenues is located in this district with the neighboring Cardinal Gibbons High School, which is the former site of
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
's alma mater, St. Mary's Industrial School. Also through this segment of Baltimore ran the beginnings of the historic
National Road The National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road) was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the Federal Government of the United States, federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the road connected the Pot ...
, which was constructed beginning in 1806 along
Old Frederick Road Maryland Route 99 (MD 99) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known as Old Frederick Road, the state highway runs from MD 32 near West Friendship east to U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Ellicott City. MD 99 parallels the north side o ...
and continuing into the county on Frederick Road into
Ellicott City, Maryland Ellicott City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in, and the county seat of, Howard County, Maryland, United States. Part of the Baltimore metropolitan area, its population was 65,834 at the 2010 census, making it the mo ...
. Other sides in this district are: Carroll Park, one of the city's largest parks, the colonial Mount Clare Mansion, and Washington Boulevard, which dates to pre-Revolutionary War days as the prime route out of the city to
Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...
, and Georgetown on the
Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...
. File:Parkside1.jpg, Belair-Edison File:Woodberry07.JPG, Woodberry File:Res Hill HD Baltimore.JPG,
Reservoir Hill Reservoir Hill, also known as Whitelock, is a neighborhood in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is located south of Druid Hill Park, north of Bolton Hill, east of Penn-North, and west of Jones Falls. It is bounded by Druid Par ...
File:Station North Arts District Baltimore Chas St.jpg, Station North File:Fells Point A.JPG,
Fells Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...
File:GoodwoodGardens.jpg,
Roland Park Roland Park is a community located in Baltimore, Maryland. It was developed between 1890 and 1920 as an upper-class streetcar suburb. The early phases of the neighborhood were designed by Edward Bouton and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. History J ...


Adjacent communities

The City of Baltimore is bordered by the following communities, all unincorporated
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...
s.


Climate

Baltimore has a
humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
(''Cfa'') in the
Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
, with long, hot summers, cool winters, and a summer peak to annual precipitation. Baltimore is part of USDA plant
hardiness zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...
s 7b and 8a. Summers are normally warm, with occasional late day thunderstorms. July, the warmest month, has a mean temperature of . Winters range from chilly to mild but vary, with sporadic snowfall: January has a daily average of , though temperatures reach quite often, and can occasionally drop below when Arctic air masses affect the area. Spring and autumn are mild, with spring being the wettest season in terms of the number of precipitation days. Summers are hot and humid with a daily average in July of , and the combination of heat and humidity leads to occasional thunderstorms. A southeasterly bay breeze off the Chesapeake often occurs on summer afternoons when hot air rises over inland areas; prevailing winds from the southwest interacting with this breeze as well as the city proper's UHI can seriously exacerbate air quality. In late summer and early autumn the track of hurricanes or their remnants may cause flooding in downtown Baltimore, despite the city being far removed from the typical coastal
storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...
areas. The average seasonal snowfall is , but it varies greatly depending on the winter, with some seasons seeing only trace accumulations of snow, while others see several major
Nor'easter A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below), or an East Coast low is a synoptic-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The name derives from the direction of the winds that blow from the northeast. The original use o ...
s. Owing to lessened
urban heat island An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparen ...
(UHI) as compared to the
city proper A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits. The term ''proper'' is not exclusive to cities; it can describe the geographical area within the boundaries of any given locality. The United Nations defines the term as "the si ...
and distance from the moderating Chesapeake Bay, the outlying and inland parts of the Baltimore metro area are usually cooler, especially at night, than the city proper and the coastal towns. Thus, in the northern and western suburbs, winter snowfall is more significant, and some areas average more than of snow per winter. It is by no means uncommon for the rain-snow line to set up in the metro area.
Freezing rain Freezing rain is rain maintained at temperatures below freezing by the ambient air mass that causes freezing on contact with surfaces. Unlike a mixture of rain and snow or ice pellets, freezing rain is made entirely of liquid droplets. The raind ...
and sleet occur a few times some winters in the area, as warm air overrides cold air at the low to mid-levels of the atmosphere. When the wind blows from the east, the cold air gets dammed against the mountains to the west and the result is freezing rain or sleet. Like all of Maryland, Baltimore is at risk for increased impacts of
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. Historically, flooding has ruined houses and almost killed people, especially in lower income majority black neighborhoods, and caused additional sewage backups, given the existing disrepair of Baltimore's water system. Extreme temperatures range from on February 9, 1934, and February 10, 1899, up to on July 22, 2011. On average, temperatures of or more occur on three days annually, or more on 43 days, and there are nine days where the high fails to reach the freezing mark.


Demographics


Population

In 2011, then-Mayor
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake (born March 17, 1970) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 50th Mayor of Baltimore from 2010 to 2016, the second woman to hold that office. She has also served as secretary of the Democratic Nation ...
said her main goal was to increase the city's population by improving city services to reduce the number of people leaving the city and by passing legislation protecting immigrants' rights to stimulate growth. Baltimore is sometimes identified as a
sanctuary city Sanctuary city (; ) refers to municipal jurisdictions, typically in North America, that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities say they want to reduce fear of deport ...
. In 2019, then-Mayor Jack Young said that Baltimore will not assist
ICE Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...
agents with immigration raids. Baltimore City's population has declined overall from 2010 to 2020 by about 34,830 people, representing a 5.6% drop. The official US census places the city's population at 585,708 for 2020. The year between 2018 and 2019 had the largest year-to-year population loss, and in 2020 Baltimore lost more population than any other major city in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
Gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
has increased since the 2000 census, primarily in East Baltimore, downtown, and Central Baltimore, with 14.8% of census tracts having had income growth and home values appreciation at a rate higher than the city overall. Most, but not all, gentrifying neighborhoods are predominantly white areas which have seen a turnover from lower income to higher income households. These areas represent either expansion of existing gentrified areas, or activity around the Inner Harbor, downtown, or the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. In some neighborhoods in East Baltimore, the Hispanic population has increased along with home values and income, while both the non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black populations have declined, a trend which is not seen in many other American cities. After
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Baltimore was the second city in the United States to reach a population of 100,000. From the 1820 through 1850 U.S. censuses, Baltimore was the second most-populous city, before being surpassed by Philadelphia in 1860. It was among the top 10 cities in population in the United States in every census up through the 1980 census, and after World War II had a population of nearly 1 million.


Characteristics

According to the , Baltimore's population is 63.7%
Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
, 29.6%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
(6.9%
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
, 5.8%
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
, 4%
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, 2%
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
, 2%
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, 0.5%
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
) 2.3%
Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
(0.54%
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
, 0.46%
Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
, 0.37%
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, 0.36%
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
, 0.21% Nepali, 0.16% Pakistani), and 0.4% Native American and Alaska Native. Across races, 4.2% of the population are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (1.63%
Salvadoran Salvadorans (Spanish: ''Salvadoreños''), also known as Salvadorians (alternate spelling: Salvadoreans), are citizens of El Salvador, a country in Central America. Most Salvadorans live in El Salvador, although there is also a significant Salvado ...
, 1.21%
Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
, 0.63% Puerto Rican, 0.6% Honduran). As per the 2020 Census, 8.1% of residents between 2016 and 2020 were foreign born persons. Females made up 53.4% of the population. The median age was 35 years old, with 22.4% under 18 years old, 65.8% from 18 to 64 years old, and 11.8% 65 or older. Baltimore also has a large
Caribbean American Caribbean Americans or West Indian Americans are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Caribbean. Caribbean Americans are a multi-ethnic and multi-racial group that trace their ancestry further in time mostly to Africa, as well as Asia, the ...
population, with the largest groups being
Jamaicans Jamaicans are the citizens of Jamaica and their descendants in the Jamaican diaspora. The vast majority of Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African descent, with minorities of Europeans, East Indians, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and others of mixed a ...
and
Trinidadians Trinidadians and Tobagonians, colloquially known as Trinis or Trinbagonians, are the people who are identified with the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The country is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As a ...
. Baltimore's Jamaican community is largely centered in the Park Heights neighborhood, but generations of immigrants have also lived in Southeast Baltimore. In 2005, approximately 30,778 people (6.5%) identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. In 2012,
same-sex marriage in Maryland Same-sex marriage in Maryland has been legally recognized since January 1, 2013. In 2012, the state's Democratic representatives, led by Governor Martin O'Malley, began a campaign for its legalization. After much debate, a law permitting same-s ...
was legalized, going into effect January 1, 2013.


Income and housing

Between 2016 and 2020, the median household was $52,164 and the median income per capita to $32,699, compared to the national averages of $64,994 and $35,384, respectively. In 2009, the median household income was $42,241 and the median income per capita was $25,707, compared to the national median income of $53,889 per household and $28,930 per capita. In 2009, 23.7% of the population lived below the poverty line, compared to 13.5% nationwide. According to the 2020 Census, 20% of Baltimore residents are now living poverty compared to 11.6% nationwide. Housing in Baltimore is relatively inexpensive for large, coastal cities of its size. The median sale price for homes in Baltimore in 2012 was $95,000. Despite the housing collapse, and along with the national trends, Baltimore residents still faced slowly increasing rent (up 3% in the summer of 2010). The median value of owner-occupied housing units between 2016 and 2020 was $242,499. The
homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...
population in Baltimore is steadily increasing; it exceeded 4,000 people in 2011. The increase in the number of young homeless people was particularly severe.


Life expectancy

As of 2015, life expectancy in Baltimore was 74 to 75 years, compared to the U.S. average of 78 to 80. Fourteen neighborhoods had lower life expectancies than
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
. The life expectancy in Downtown/Seton Hill was comparable to that of
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
.


Religion

According to Pew Research Center, 25% of adults in Baltimore report affiliating with no religion. 50% of the adult population of Baltimore are
Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
. Following Protestantism,
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
is the second largest religious affiliation, comprising 15% percent of the population, followed by
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
(3%) and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
(2%). Around 1% identify with other
Christian denominations Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
.Adults in the Baltimore metro area
''Religious Landscape Study'',
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
, May 12, 2015


Languages

, 91% (526,705) of Baltimore residents five years old and older spoke only English at home. Close to 4% (21,661) spoke Spanish. Other languages, such as
African languages The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families: * Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern A ...
, French, and Chinese are spoken by less than 1% of the population.


Crime

Crime in Baltimore, generally concentrated in areas high in poverty, has been extreme for many years. Overall reported crime has dropped by 60% from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, but homicide rates remain high and exceed the national average. The worst years for crime in Baltimore overall were from 1993 to 1996; with 96,243 crimes reported in 1995. Baltimore's 344 homicides in 2015 represented the highest homicide rate in the city's recorded history—52.5 per 100,000 people, surpassing the record set in 1993—and the second-highest for U.S. cities behind
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and ahead of
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
. Of Baltimore's 344 homicides in 2015, 321 (93.3%) of the victims were African-American. Drug use and deaths by drug use (particularly drugs used intravenously, such as heroin) are a related problem which has impaired Baltimore for decades. Among cities greater than 400,000, Baltimore ranked 2nd in its opiate drug death rate in the United States behind
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
. The
DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...
reported that 10% of Baltimore's population – about 64,000 people – are addicted to heroin, most of which is trafficked into the city from New York. In 2011, Baltimore police reported 196 homicides, the lowest number in the city since 197 homicides in 1978 and far lower than the peak homicide count of 353 slayings in 1993. City leaders at the time credited a sustained focus on repeat violent offenders and increased community engagement for the continued drop, reflecting a nationwide decline in crime. On August 8, 2014, Baltimore's new youth
curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...
law went into effect. It prohibits unaccompanied children under age 14 from being on the streets after 9 p.m. and those aged 14–16 from being out after 10 p.m. during the week and 11 p.m. on weekends and during the summer. The goal is to keep children out of dangerous places and reduce crime. Crime in Baltimore reached another peak in 2015 when the year's tally of 344 homicides was second only to the record 353 in 1993, when Baltimore had about 100,000 more residents. The killings in 2015 were on pace with recent years in the early months of 2015 but skyrocketed after the unrest and rioting of late April. In five of the next eight months, killings topped 30–40 per month. Nearly 90 percent of 2015's homicides resulted from shootings, renewing calls for new gun laws. In 2016, according to annual crime statistics released by the Baltimore Police Department, there were 318 murders in the city. This total marked a 7.56 percent decline in homicides from 2015. In an interview with ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', on November 2, 2017,Gately, Gary (November 2, 2017)
" Baltimore is more murderous than Chicago. Can anyone save the city from itself?"
''The Guardian''.
David Simon David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work on ''The Wire'' (2002–08). He worked for ''The Baltimore Sun'' City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote '' Hom ...
, himself a former police reporter for ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'', ascribed the most recent surge in murders to the high-profile decision by Baltimore state's attorney,
Marilyn Mosby Marilyn Mosby (née James; born January 22, 1980) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the State's Attorney for Baltimore from 2015 to 2023. She is currently under federal indictment for multiple crimes. Early life Born Marilyn Jam ...
, to charge six city police officers following the
death of Freddie Gray On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department over his legal possession of a knife. While being transported in a police van, Gray sustained injuries and was taken to ...
after he was paralyzed during a "rough-ride" in a police van while in police custody in April 2015, dying from the injury a week later. "What Mosby basically did was send a message to the Baltimore police department: 'I'm going to put you in jail for making a bad arrest.' So officers figured it out: 'I can go to jail for making the wrong arrest, so I'm not getting out of my car to clear a corner,' and that's exactly what happened post-Freddie Gray." In Baltimore, "arrest numbers have plummeted from more than 40,000 in 2014, the year before Gray's death and the subsequent charges against the officers, to about 18,000
s of November 2017 S, or s, is the nineteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ess'' (pronounced ), plural ''esses''. History ...
This happened even as homicides soared from 211 in 2014 to 344 in 2015 – an increase of 63%." Simon's HBO miniseries
We Own this City ''We Own This City'' is an American miniseries based on the nonfiction book of the same name by '' Baltimore Sun'' reporter Justin Fenton. The miniseries was developed and written by George Pelecanos and David Simon, and directed by Reinaldo ...
aired in April 2022 and covered many of the events surrounding the death of Freddie Gray and the work
slowdown A slowdown ( UK: go-slow) is an industrial action in which employees perform their duties but seek to reduce productivity or efficiency in their performance of these duties. A slowdown may be used as either a prelude or an alternative to a stri ...
by the Baltimore Police Department during that time period.


Economy

Once a predominantly industrial town, with an economic base focused on steel processing, shipping, auto manufacturing (General Motors
Baltimore Assembly Baltimore Assembly (properly named Broening Highway General Motors Plant) was a General Motors factory in Baltimore, Maryland. The plant opened in 1935 to produce Chevrolets and closed on May 13, 2005. It was a two-level plant located in the C ...
), and transportation, the city experienced
deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...
, which cost residents tens of thousands of low-skill, high-wage jobs. The city now relies on a low-wage
service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments: * The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer ma ...
, which accounts for 31% of jobs in the city. Around the turn of the 20th century, Baltimore was the leading U.S. manufacturer of
rye whiskey Rye whiskey can refer to two different, but related, types of whiskey: * American rye whiskey, which is similar to bourbon whiskey, but must be distilled from at least 51 percent rye grain * Canadian whisky, which is often referred to as (and o ...
and
straw hat A straw hat is a wide-brimmed hat woven out of straw or straw-like synthetic materials. Straw hats are a type of sun hat designed to shade the head and face from direct sunlight, but are also used in fashion as a decorative element or a ...
s. It also led in refining of crude oil, brought to the city by pipeline from Pennsylvania. the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated Baltimore's unemployment rate at 5.8% while one quarter of Baltimore residents (and 37% of Baltimore children) live in poverty. The 2012 closure of a major steel plant at Sparrows Point is expected to have a further impact on employment and the local economy. The Census Bureau reported in 2013 that 207,000 workers commute into Baltimore city each day.
Downtown Baltimore Downtown Baltimore is the central business district of the city of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Franklin Street to the north, President Street to the east and the Inner Harbor area to the s ...
is the primary economic asset within Baltimore City and the region with 29.1 million square feet of office space. The tech sector is rapidly growing as the Baltimore metro ranks 8th in the CBRE Tech Talent Report among 50 U.S. metro areas for high growth rate and number of tech professionals. ''Forbes'' ranked Baltimore fourth among America's "new tech hot spots". The city is home to the
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
. Other large companies in Baltimore include
Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...
, BRT Laboratories, Cordish Company,
Legg Mason Legg Mason was an American investment management and asset management firm headquartered in Baltimore, founded in 1899 and acquired by Franklin Templeton Investments as of July 2020. As of December 31, 2019, the company had $730.8 billion in asse ...
,
McCormick & Company McCormick & Company, Incorporated is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments, and other flavoring products to retail outlets, food manufacturers, and foodservice businesses. Thei ...
,
T. Rowe Price T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. is an American publicly owned global investment management firm that offers funds, subadvisory services, separate account management, and retirement plans and services for individuals, institutions, and financial inter ...
, and
Royal Farms Royal Farms is a privately owned chain of convenience stores headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The company operates more than 200 stores throughout Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia with plans to expand ...
. A
sugar refinery A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar. Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the white ...
owned by
American Sugar Refining American Sugar Refining, Inc. is a large privately held cane sugar refining company, with a production capacity of 6.5 million tons of sugar. The company produces a full line of consumer, industrial, food service, and specialty sweetener product ...
is one of Baltimore's cultural icons. Nonprofits based in Baltimore include
Lutheran Services in America Lutheran Services in America is the national office of a network of 300 Lutheran health and human services organizations across the United States. Headquartered in Washington, DC, Lutheran Services in America amplifies the voice of its $23 billion ...
and
Catholic Relief Services Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the Bishops of the United States, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 110 ...
. Almost a quarter of the jobs in the Baltimore region were in science, technology, engineering, and math as of mid-2013, a fact attributed in part to the city's extensive undergraduate and graduate schools; maintenance and repair experts were included in this count.


Port

The center of international commerce for the region is the World Trade Center Baltimore. It houses the Maryland Port Administration and U.S. headquarters for major shipping lines. Baltimore is ranked 9th for total dollar value of cargo and 13th for cargo tonnage for all U.S. ports. In 2014, total cargo moving through the port totaled 29.5 million tons, down from 30.3 million tons in 2013. The value of cargo traveling through the port in 2014 came to $52.5 billion, down from $52.6 billion in 2013. The
Port of Baltimore Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities f ...
generates $3 billion in annual wages and salary, as well as supporting 14,630 direct jobs and 108,000 jobs connected to port work. In 2014, the port also generated more than $300 million in taxes. It serves over 50 ocean carriers making nearly 1,800 annual visits. Among all U.S. ports, Baltimore is first in handling automobiles, light trucks, farm and construction machinery; and imported forest products, aluminum, and sugar. The port is second in coal exports. The Port of Baltimore's cruise industry, which offers year-round trips on several lines supports over 500 jobs and brings in over $90 million to Maryland's economy annually. Growth at the port continues with the Maryland Port Administration plans to turn the southern tip of the former steel mill into a marine terminal, primarily for car and truck shipments, but also for anticipated new business coming to Baltimore after the completion of the
Panama Canal expansion project The Panama Canal expansion project ( es, ampliación del Canal de Panamá), also called the Third Set of Locks Project, doubled the capacity of the Panama Canal by adding a new lane of traffic allowing for a larger number of ships, and increasin ...
.


Tourism

Baltimore's history and attractions have made it a popular tourist destination. In 2014, the city hosted 24.5 million visitors, who spent $5.2 billion. The Baltimore Visitor Center, which is operated by
Visit Baltimore Visit Baltimore, formerly the Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Association (BACVA), is a quasi-public organization started in 1980 by then-Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer. The agency is charged with bringing in tourists and convention ...
, is located on Light Street in the Inner Harbor. Much of the city's tourism centers around the Inner Harbor, with the National Aquarium being Maryland's top tourist destination. Baltimore Harbor's restoration has made it "a city of boats", with several historic ships and other attractions on display and open to the public. The USS ''Constellation'', the last Civil War-era vessel afloat, is docked at the head of the Inner Harbor; the USS ''Torsk'', a submarine that holds the Navy's record for dives (more than 10,000); and the Coast Guard cutter ''
WHEC-37 WPG/WAGC/WHEC-37, originally called USCGC ''Taney'' (), is a United States Coast Guard USCG high endurance cutter, High Endurance Cutter notable as the last warship floating that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was named for Roger B. Ta ...
'', the last surviving U.S. warship that was in
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and which engaged Japanese Zero aircraft during the battle. Also docked is the lightship ''Chesapeake'', which for decades marked the entrance to Chesapeake Bay; and the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, the oldest surviving
screw-pile lighthouse A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse to begin construction was built by the blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell. Construction ...
on Chesapeake Bay, which once marked the mouth of the Patapsco River and the entrance to Baltimore. All of these attractions are owned and maintained by the
Historic Ships in Baltimore Historic Ships in Baltimore, created as a result of the merger of the USS Constellation Museum and the Baltimore Maritime Museum, is a maritime museum located in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. The museum's collecti ...
organization. The Inner Harbor is also the home port of '' Pride of Baltimore II'', the state of Maryland's "goodwill ambassador" ship, a reconstruction of a famous
Baltimore Clipper A Baltimore Clipper is a fast sailing ship historically built on the mid-Atlantic seaboard of the United States of America, especially at the port of Baltimore, Maryland. An early form of clipper, the name is most commonly applied to two-masted ...
ship. Other tourist destinations include sporting venues such as
Oriole Park at Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the Baseball park#Retro-classic ballparks, "retro" major league ballparks ...
,
M&T Bank Stadium M&T Bank Stadium is a multi-purpose football stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium is immediately adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the ...
, and
Pimlico Race Course Pimlico Race Course is a thoroughbred horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Ol ...
,
Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack b ...
, the
Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...
, Federal Hill, and
Fells Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...
neighborhoods,
Lexington Market Lexington Market is a historic market in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The market is now housed in a 60,000-square-foot market shed building completed in 2022 that is home to 50 merchants and kiosks. The market has occupied many market buildings ...
, Horseshoe Casino, and museums such as the
Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, the
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
Birthplace and Museum, the
Maryland Science Center The Maryland Science Center, located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, opened to the public in 1976. It includes three levels of exhibits, a planetarium, and an observatory. It was one of the original structures that drove the revitalization of the ...
, and the
B&O Railroad Museum The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Balti ...
. File:Baltimore Visitor Center.JPG, Baltimore Visitor Center in Inner Harbor File:Fountain@InnerHarbor Baltimore.JPG, Fountain near visitor center in Inner Harbor File:Sunset@Baltimore 1.JPG, Sunset views from Baltimore's Inner Harbor File:Sunset@Baltimore 2.JPG, File:Sunset@Baltimore 3.JPG, File:Sunset@Baltimore II.JPG File:BaltimoreNationalAquarium.JPG, Baltimore is the home of the National Aquarium, one of the world's largest.


Culture

Historically a working-class port town, Baltimore has sometimes been dubbed a "city of neighborhoods", with 72 designated historic districts traditionally occupied by distinct ethnic groups. Most notable today are three downtown areas along the port: the Inner Harbor, frequented by tourists because of its hotels, shops, and museums; Fells Point, once a favorite entertainment spot for sailors but now refurbished and gentrified (and featured in the movie ''
Sleepless in Seattle ''Sleepless in Seattle'' is a 1993 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nora Ephron, from a screenplay she wrote with David S. Ward and Jeff Arch. Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the film follows a journalist (Ryan) who, despite be ...
''); and
Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...
, located between the other two, where Baltimore's Italian-American community is based – and where U.S. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
grew up. Further inland,
Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...
is the traditional center of cultural and artistic life of the city; it is home to a distinctive
Washington Monument The Washington Monument is an obelisk shaped building within the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775–1784) in the American Revolutionary War and the ...
, set atop a hill in a 19th-century urban square, that predates the monument in Washington, D.C. by several decades. Baltimore also has a significant
German American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
population, and was the second largest port of immigration to the United States, behind
Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
in New York and New Jersey. Between 1820 and 1989, almost 2 million who were German,
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, English, Irish,
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, Lithuanian, French,
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
,
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...
,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
came to Baltimore, most between the years 1861 to 1930. By 1913, when Baltimore was averaging forty thousand immigrants per year, World War I closed off the flow of immigrants. By 1970, Baltimore's heyday as an immigration center was a distant memory. There also was a
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
dating back to at least the 1880s which consisted of no more than 400 Chinese residents. A local Chinese-American association remains based there, but only one Chinese restaurant as of 2009. Baltimore has quite a history when it comes to making beer, an art that thrived in Baltimore from the 1800s to the 1950s with over 100 old breweries in the city's past. The best remaining example of that history is the old American Brewery Building on North Gay Street and the
National Brewing Company The National Brewing Company was an American brewing company that was founded in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1885. Its Baltimore brewery was located in the city's Highlandtown neighborhood. After World War II, it grew to be the largest brewer in Balti ...
building in the Brewer's Hill neighborhood. In the 1940s the National Brewing Company introduced the nation's first six-pack. National's two most prominent brands, were
National Bohemian National Bohemian Beer, colloquially Natty Boh, is an American lager originating from Baltimore, Maryland. It was first brewed in 1885 by the National Brewing Company, but was eventually purchased by Pabst Brewing Company. Nearly 90 percent of ...
Beer colloquially "Natty Boh" and Colt 45. Listed on the
Pabst Pabst is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Adolf Pabst (1899–1990), American mineralogist and geologist *Daniel Pabst (1826–1910), American furniture maker *Frederick Pabst (1836–1904), American brewer *Georg Wilhelm ...
website as a "Fun Fact", Colt 45 was named after running back #45 Jerry Hill of the 1963
Baltimore Colts The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from its founding in 1953 to 1984. The team now plays in Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis Colts. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breed ...
and not the .45 caliber handgun ammunition round. Both brands are still made today, albeit outside of Maryland, and served all around the Baltimore area at bars, as well as
Orioles Oriole or Orioles may refer to: Animals * Old World oriole, colorful passerine birds in the family Oriolidae * New World oriole, a group of birds in the family Icteridae Music * The Orioles, an R&B and doo-wop group of the late 1940s and earl ...
and
Ravens Ravens may refer to: * Raven, a species of the genus ''Corvus'' Sports * Anderson Ravens, the intercollegiate athletic program of Anderson University in Indiana * Baltimore Ravens, a professional American football franchise * Benedictine Ravens, ...
games. The Natty Boh logo appears on all cans, bottles, and packaging; and merchandise featuring him can still easily be found in shops in Maryland, including several in
Fells Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...
. Each year the
Artscape Artscape may refer to: * Artscape (festival) Artscape is an annual art festival held in the Mount Royal neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland in July. Since its first annual event in 1982, it has become the largest free arts festival in America. It ...
takes place in the city in the Bolton Hill neighborhood, close to the Maryland Institute College of Art. Artscape styles itself as the "largest free arts festival in America". Each May, the
Maryland Film Festival The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival ...
takes place in Baltimore, using all five screens of the historic Charles Theatre as its anchor venue. Many movies and television shows have been filmed in Baltimore. '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' was set and filmed in Baltimore, as well as ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...
.'' ''
House of Cards A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a structu ...
'' and ''
Veep ''Veep'' is an American political satire comedy television series that aired on HBO from April 22, 2012, to May 12, 2019. The series was created by Armando Iannucci as an adaptation of his sitcom ''The Thick of It''. The protagonist of ''Veep'' ...
'' are set in Washington, D.C. but filmed in Baltimore. Baltimore has cultural museums in many areas of study. The Baltimore Museum of Art, and the
Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
are internationally renowned for its collection of art. The Baltimore Museum of Art has the largest holding of works by
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
in the world. The
American Visionary Art Museum The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland's Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway Maryland Route 2 (MD 2) is the longest state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs fro ...
has been designated by
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
as America's national museum for
visionary art Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. History The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, first establis ...
. The
National Great Blacks In Wax Museum The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is a wax museum in Baltimore, Maryland featuring prominent African-American and other black historical figures. It was established in 1983, in a downtown storefront on Saratoga Street. The museum is currentl ...
is the first African American wax museum in the country, featuring more than 150 life-size and lifelike wax figures.


Cuisine

Baltimore is known for its Maryland
blue crabs Blue crab may refer to: * Blue Crab 11, an American sailboat design * ''Callinectes sapidus'' – Chesapeake or Atlantic blue crab of the West Atlantic, introduced elsewhere * ''Cardisoma guanhumi'' – blue land crab of the West Atlantic * '' Disc ...
, crab cake,
Old Bay Seasoning Old Bay Seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that is marketed in the United States by McCormick & Company and originally created in Baltimore, Maryland. The seasoning is a mix of celery salt (salt, celery seed), spices (including red pep ...
, pit beef, and the "chicken box". The city has many restaurants in or around the Inner Harbor. The most known and acclaimed are the Charleston, Woodberry Kitchen, and the Charm City Cakes bakery featured on the Food Network's ''
Ace of Cakes ''Ace of Cakes'' is an American reality television show that aired on the Food Network. The show focused on the daily operations of Duff Goldman's custom cake shop, Charm City Cakes, in Baltimore, Maryland; including small-business ownership, wor ...
''. The
Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...
neighborhood's biggest draw is the food. Fells Point also is a foodie neighborhood for tourists and locals and is where the oldest continuously running tavern in the country, "The Horse You Came in on Saloon", is located. Many of the city's upscale restaurants can be found in Harbor East. Five public markets are located across the city. The Baltimore Public Market System is the oldest continuously operating public market system in the United States.
Lexington Market Lexington Market is a historic market in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The market is now housed in a 60,000-square-foot market shed building completed in 2022 that is home to 50 merchants and kiosks. The market has occupied many market buildings ...
is one of the longest-running markets in the world and longest running in the country, having been around since 1782. The market continues to stand at its original site. Baltimore is the last place in America where one can still find
arabber An arabber (or a-rabber) is a street vendor (hawker) selling fruits and vegetables from a colorful, horse-drawn cart. Once a common sight in American East Coast cities, only a handful of arabbers still walk the streets of Baltimore. They rely on s ...
s, vendors who sell fresh fruits and vegetables from a horse-drawn cart that goes up and down neighborhood streets. Food- and drink-rating site
Zagat The ''Zagat Survey'', commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; , ) and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering ...
ranked Baltimore second in a list of the 17 best food cities in the country in 2015.


Local dialect

Baltimore city, along with its surrounding regions, is home to a unique local dialect known as the Baltimore dialect. It is part of the larger
Mid-Atlantic American English Philadelphia English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware (espec ...
group and is noted to be very similar to the
Philadelphia dialect Philadelphia English is a variety or dialect of American English native to Philadelphia and extending into Philadelphia's metropolitan area throughout the Delaware Valley, including southeastern Pennsylvania, counties of northern Delaware (espec ...
. The so-called "Bawlmerese" accent is known for its characteristic pronunciation of its long "o" vowel, in which an "eh" sound is added before the long "o" sound (/oʊ/ shifts to ʊ or even ʊ. It also adopts Philadelphia's pattern of the short "a" sound, such that the tensed vowel in words like "bath" or "ask" does not match the more relaxed one in "sad" or "act". Baltimore native
John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...
parodies the city and its dialect extensively in his films. Most are filmed in Baltimore, including the 1972 cult classic ''
Pink Flamingos ''Pink Flamingos'' is a 1972 American film directed, written, produced, narrated, filmed, and edited by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes ''Female Trouble'' (1974) and ''Desperate Livin ...
'', as well as ''
Hairspray Hairspray may refer to: * Hair spray, a personal grooming product that keeps hair protected from humidity and wind * ''Hairspray'' (1988 film), a film by John Waters ** ''Hairspray'' (1988 soundtrack), the film's soundtrack album ** ''Hairspray ...
'' and its Broadway musical remake.


Performing arts

Baltimore has three state-designated arts and entertainment (A & E) districts. The
Station North Arts and Entertainment District The Station North Arts and Entertainment District (often referred to as just Station North) is an area and official arts and entertainment district in the U.S. city of Baltimore, Maryland. The neighborhood is marked by a combination of artistica ...
, Highlandtown Arts District, and the Bromo Arts & Entertainment District. The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, a non-profit organization, produces events and arts programs as well as managing several facilities. It is the official Baltimore City Arts Council. BOPA coordinates Baltimore's major events, including New Year's Eve and July 4 celebrations at the Inner Harbor,
Artscape Artscape may refer to: * Artscape (festival) Artscape is an annual art festival held in the Mount Royal neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland in July. Since its first annual event in 1982, it has become the largest free arts festival in America. It ...
, which is America's largest free arts festival, Baltimore Book Festival, Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar, School 33 Art Center's Open Studio Tour, and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. The
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore SO has its principal residence at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it performs more than 130 concerts a year. In 2005, it bega ...
is an internationally renowned orchestra, founded in 1916 as a publicly funded municipal organization. Its most recent music director was
Marin Alsop Marin Alsop ( mɛər.ɪn ˈæːl.sɑːp born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate ...
, a protégé of Leonard Bernstein's. Centerstage (theater), Centerstage is the premier theater company in the city and a regionally well-respected group. The
Lyric Opera House The Lyric Performing Arts Center is a music venue in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, located close to the University of Baltimore law school. The building was modeled after the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam, and it was inaugurate ...
is the home of Lyric Opera Baltimore, which operates there as part of the Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center. The Baltimore Consort has been a leading early music ensemble for over twenty-five years. The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, home of the restored Thomas W. Lamb-designed Hippodrome Theatre, has afforded Baltimore the opportunity to become a major regional player in the area of touring Broadway and other performing arts presentations. Renovating Baltimore's historic theatres has become widespread throughout the city; renovated theatres include the Everyman Theatre, Baltimore, Everyman, Centre, Senator Theatre, Senator, and most recently Parkway Theatre (Baltimore), Parkway Theatre. Other buildings have been reused; these include the former Mercantile Deposit and Trust (Baltimore, Maryland), Mercantile Deposit and Trust Company bank building, which is now The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company Theater. Baltimore also boasts a wide array of professional (non-touring) and community theater groups. Aside from Center Stage, resident troupes in the city include The Vagabond Players, the oldest continuously operating community theater group in the country, Everyman Theatre, Single Carrot Theatre, and Baltimore Theatre Festival. Community theaters in the city include Fells Point Community Theatre and the The Arena Players, Arena Players Inc., which is the nation's oldest continuously operating African American community theater. In 2009, the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, an all-volunteer theatrical company, launched its first production. Baltimore is home to the Pride of Baltimore Chorus, a three-time international silver medalist women's chorus, affiliated with Sweet Adelines International. The Maryland State Boychoir is located in the northeastern Baltimore neighborhood of Mayfield. Baltimore is the home of non-profit chamber music organization Vivre Musicale. VM won a 2011–2012 award for Adventurous Programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Chamber Music America. The
Peabody Institute The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...
, located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, is the oldest conservatory of music in the United States. Established in 1857, it is one of the most prestigious in the world, along with Juilliard School, Juilliard, Eastman School of Music, Eastman, and the Curtis Institute of Music, Curtis Institute. The
Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...
Choir is also one of the nation's most prestigious university choral ensembles. The city is home to the Baltimore School for the Arts, a public high school in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore. The institution is nationally recognized for its success in preparation for students entering music (vocal/instrumental), theatre (acting/theater production), dance, and visual arts. In 1981, Baltimore hosted the first International Theater Festival, the first such festival in the country. Executive producer Al Kraizer staged 66 performances of nine shows by international theatre companies, including from Ireland, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Israel. However, the festival proved to be expensive to mount, and the following year the festival was hosted in Denver, called the World Theatre Festival, at the Denver Center for Performing Arts, after the city had asked Kraizer to organize it. In June 1986, the 20th Theatre of Nations, sponsored by the International Theatre Institute, was held in Baltimore – the first time it had been held in the U.S.


Sports


Baseball

Baltimore has a long and storied baseball history, including its distinction as the birthplace of
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
in 1895. The original Baltimore Orioles (19th century), 19th century Baltimore Orioles were one of the most successful early franchises, featuring numerous hall of famers during its years from 1882 to 1899. As one of the eight inaugural American League franchises, the Baltimore Orioles played in the AL during the 1901 and 1902 seasons. The team moved to New York City before the 1903 season and was renamed the New York Highlanders, which later became the New York Yankees. Ruth played for the Baltimore Orioles (minor league), minor league Baltimore Orioles team, which was active from 1903 to 1914. After playing one season in 1915 as the Richmond Climbers, the team returned the following year to Baltimore, where it played as the Orioles until 1953. The team currently known as the
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
has represented Major League Baseball locally since 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to the city of Baltimore. The Orioles advanced to the World Series in 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979 and 1983, winning three times (1966, 1970 and 1983), while making the playoffs all but one year (1972) from 1969 through 1974. In 1995, local player (and later Hall of Famer) Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, for which Ripken was named Sportsman of the Year by ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine. Six former Orioles players, including Ripken (2007), and two of the team's managers have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Baseball Hall of Fame. Since 1992, the Orioles' home ballpark has been
Oriole Park at Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the Baseball park#Retro-classic ballparks, "retro" major league ballparks ...
, which has been hailed as one of the league's best since it opened.


Football

Prior to an NFL team moving to Baltimore, there had been several attempts at a professional football team prior to the 1950s, which were blocked by the Washington team and its NFL friends. Most were minor league or semi-professional teams. The first major league to base a team in Baltimore was the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), which had a team named the Baltimore Colts (1947–50), Baltimore Colts. The AAFC Colts played for three seasons in the AAFC (1947, 1948, and 1949), and when the AAFC folded following the 1949 season, moved to the NFL for a single year (1950) before going bankrupt. Three years later, the NFL's Dallas Texans (NFL), Dallas Texans would itself fold. Its assets and player contracts purchased by an ownership team headed by Baltimore businessman Carroll Rosenbloom, who moved the team to Baltimore, establishing a new team also named the History of the Baltimore Colts, Baltimore Colts. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Colts were one of the NFLs more successful franchises, led by Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas who set a then-record of 47 consecutive games with a touchdown pass. The Colts advanced to the NFL Championship twice (1958 & 1959) and Super Bowl twice (1969 & 1971), winning all except Super Bowl III in 1969. After the 1983 season, the team Baltimore Colts relocation to Indianapolis, left Baltimore for Indianapolis in 1984, where they became the Indianapolis Colts. The NFL returned to Baltimore when the former Cleveland Browns relocation controversy, Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore to become the
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
in 1996. Since then, the Ravens won a Super Bowl championship in Super Bowl XXXV, 2000 and Super Bowl XLVII, 2012, six AFC North division championships (2003, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2018, and 2019), and appeared in four AFC Championship Games (2000, 2008, 2011 and 2012). Baltimore also hosted a Canadian Football League franchise, the Baltimore Stallions for the 1994 CFL season, 1994 and 1995 CFL season, 1995 seasons. Following the 1995 season, and ultimate end to the Canadian Football League in the United States experiment, the team was sold and relocated to Montreal.


Other teams and events

The first professional sports organization in the United States, Maryland Jockey Club, The Maryland Jockey Club, was formed in Baltimore in 1743. Preakness Stakes, the second race in the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, has been held every May at
Pimlico Race Course Pimlico Race Course is a thoroughbred horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Ol ...
in Baltimore since 1873. College lacrosse is a common sport in the spring, as the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays men's lacrosse team has won 44 national championships, the most of any program in history. In addition, Loyola University Maryland, Loyola University won its first men's NCAA lacrosse championship in 2012. The Baltimore Blast are a professional arena soccer team that play in the Major Arena Soccer League at the SECU Arena on the campus of Towson University. The Blast have won nine championships in various leagues, including the MASL. A previous entity of the Baltimore Blast (1980–92), Blast played in the Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–92), Major Indoor Soccer League from 1980 to 1992, winning one championship. The Baltimore Kings, a Baltimore Blast affiliate, joined Major Arena Soccer League 3, MASL 3 in 2021 to begin play in 2022. FC Baltimore, FC Baltimore 1729 was a semi-professional soccer club in the National Premier Soccer League, NPSL league, with the goal of bringing a community-oriented competitive soccer experience to the city of Baltimore. Their inaugural season started on May 11, 2018, and they played their home games at Community College of Baltimore County#Essex Campus, CCBC Essex Field. The Baltimore Blues were a semi-professional rugby league club which began competition in the USA Rugby League in 2012. The Baltimore Bohemians were an American Football (soccer), soccer club which competed in the USL Premier Development League, the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid. Their inaugural season started in the spring of 2012. The Baltimore Grand Prix debuted along the streets of the Inner Harbor section of the city's downtown on September 2–4, 2011. The event played host to the American Le Mans Series on Saturday and the IndyCar Series on Sunday. Support races from smaller series were also held, including Indy Lights. After three consecutive years, on September 13, 2013, it was announced that the event would not be held in 2014 or 2015 due to scheduling conflicts. The athletic equipment company
Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...
is also based out of Baltimore. Founded in 1996 by
Kevin Plank Kevin Audette Plank (born August 13, 1972) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Plank is the founder and executive chairman of Under Armour, a manufacturer of sportswear, footwear and accessories, based in Baltimore, Maryland ...
, a University of Maryland alumnus, the company's headquarters are located in Tide Point, adjacent to
Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack b ...
and the Domino Sugar factory. The Baltimore Marathon is the flagship race of several races. The marathon begins at the
Camden Yards The Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a baseball stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles, and the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early ...
sports complex and travels through many diverse neighborhoods of Baltimore, including the scenic Inner Harbor waterfront area, historic Federal Hill,
Fells Point Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...
, and Canton, Baltimore. The race then proceeds to other important focal points of the city such as
Patterson Park Patterson Park is an urban park in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland, United States, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Canton, Highlandtown, Patterson Park, and Butchers Hill. It is bordered by East Baltimore Street, Eastern Avenue, South Pat ...
, Clifton Park, Lake Montebello, the Charles Village neighborhood and the western edge of downtown. After winding through 42.195 kilometres (26.219 mi) of Baltimore, the race ends at virtually the same point at which it starts. The Baltimore Brigade were an Arena Football League team based in Baltimore that from 2017 to 2019 played at
Royal Farms Arena CFG Bank Arena (originally the Baltimore Civic Center and formerly Royal Farms Arena, Baltimore Arena and 1st Mariner Arena) is a multipurpose arena in Baltimore, Maryland. This venue is located about one block away from the Baltimore Convention ...
. The team ceased operations along with the league in 2019.


Parks and recreation

The City of Baltimore boasts over of parkland."City Profiles: Baltimore"
''The Trust for Public Land''. Retrieved on July 5, 2013
The Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks manages the majority of parks and recreational facilities in the city including
Patterson Park Patterson Park is an urban park in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland, United States, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Canton, Highlandtown, Patterson Park, and Butchers Hill. It is bordered by East Baltimore Street, Eastern Avenue, South Pat ...
, Federal Hill Park, and
Druid Hill Park Druid Hill Park is a urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive (north), Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road (west and south), and the Jones Falls Expressway / Interstate 83 (east).


Politics and government

Baltimore is an
independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...
, and not part of any county (United States), county. For most governmental purposes under Maryland law, Baltimore City is treated as a county-level entity. The United States Census Bureau uses counties as the basic unit for presentation of statistical information in the United States, and treats Baltimore as a county equivalent for those purposes. Baltimore has been a Democratic Party (United States), Democratic stronghold for over 150 years, with Democrats dominating every level of government. In virtually all elections, the Democratic primary is the real contest. As of the 2020 elections, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republican Party (United States), Republicans by almost 10-to-1. No Republican has been elected to the City Council since 1939, and the city's last Republican mayor, Theodore McKeldin, left office in 1967. No Republican candidate since then has received 25 percent or more of the vote. In the 2016 Baltimore mayoral election, 2016 and 2020 Baltimore mayoral election, 2020 mayoral elections, the Republicans were pushed into third place by write-in and independent candidates, respectively. The last Republican candidate for president to win the city was Dwight Eisenhower in his successful reelection bid in 1956. The city hosted the first six Democratic National Conventions, from 1832 through 1852, and hosted the DNC again in 1860 Democratic National Convention, 1860, 1872 Democratic National Convention, 1872, and 1912 Democratic National Convention, 1912.


City government


Mayor

Brandon Scott is the current mayor of Baltimore. He was elected in 2020 and took office on December 8, 2020. Scott succeeded Jack Young who had been mayor since May 2, 2019, upon the resignation of Catherine Pugh. Prior to Pugh's official resignation, Young was the president of the Baltimore City Council and had been the acting mayor since April 2. Catherine Pugh became the Democratic nominee for mayor in 2016 and won the 2016 Baltimore mayoral election, mayoral election in 2016 with 57.1% of the vote; Pugh took office as mayor on December 6, 2016. Pugh took a leave of absence in April 2019 due to health concerns, then officially resigned from office on May 2. The resignation coincided with a scandal over a "self-dealing" book-sales arrangement.
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake (born March 17, 1970) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 50th Mayor of Baltimore from 2010 to 2016, the second woman to hold that office. She has also served as secretary of the Democratic Nation ...
assumed the office of Mayor on February 4, 2010, when predecessor Dixon's resignation became effective. Rawlings-Blake had been serving as City Council President at the time. She was elected to a full term in 2011, defeating Pugh in the primary election and receiving 84% of the vote. Sheila Dixon became the first female mayor of Baltimore on January 17, 2007. As the former City Council President, she assumed the office of Mayor when former Mayor Martin O'Malley took office as Governor of Maryland. On November 6, 2007, Dixon won the Baltimore mayoral election, 2007, Baltimore mayoral election. Mayor Dixon's administration ended less than three years after her election, the result of a criminal investigation that began in 2006 while she was still City Council President. She was convicted on a single misdemeanor charge of embezzlement on December 1, 2009. A month later, Dixon made an Alford plea to a perjury charge and agreed to resign from office; Maryland, like most states, does not allow convicted felons to hold office.


Baltimore City Council

Grassroots pressure for reform, voiced as Question P, restructured the city council in November 2002, against the will of the mayor, the council president, and the majority of the council. A coalition of union and community groups, organized by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), backed the effort. The Baltimore City Council is now made up of 14 single-member districts and one elected at-large council president. Current members of the council are Nick Mosby, Danielle McCray, Zeke Cohen, Ryan Dorsey, Mark Conway, Isaac Schleifer, Sharon Middleton, James Torrence, Kristerfer Burnett, John Bullock (Maryland politician), John Bullock, Phylicia Porter, Eric Costello, Robert Stokes, Sr., Antonio Glover, and Odette Ramos. Nick Mosby has been the council president since November 2020, when he was elected to succeed the role from Mayor Brandon Scott.


Law enforcement

The Baltimore Police Department, Baltimore City Police Department, founded 1784 as a "Night City Watch" and day Constables system and later reorganized as a City Department in 1853, with a following reorganization under State of Maryland supervision in 1859, with appointments made by the Governor of Maryland after a disturbing period of civic and elections violence with riots in the later part of the decade, is the current primary law enforcement agency serving the citizens of the City of Baltimore. Campus and building security for the city's Baltimore City Public Schools, public schools is provided by the Baltimore City Public Schools Police, established in the 1970s. In the period of 2011–2015, 120 lawsuits were brought against Baltimore police for alleged brutality and misconduct. The Freddie Gray settlement of $6.4 million exceeds the combined total settlements of the 120 lawsuits, as state law caps such payments. The Maryland Transportation Authority Police under the Maryland Department of Transportation, (originally established as the "Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Police" when opened in 1957) is the primary law enforcement agency on the Fort McHenry Tunnel Thruway (Interstate 95), the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway (Interstate 895), which go under the Northwest Branch of the
Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...
, and Interstate 395 (Maryland), Interstate 395, which has three ramp bridges crossing the Middle Branch of the
Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...
which are under Maryland Transportation Authority, MdTA jurisdiction, the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, (BWI) and have limited concurrent jurisdiction with the Baltimore Police Department, Baltimore City Police Department under a "memorandum of understanding". Law enforcement on the fleet of transit buses and transit rail systems serving Baltimore is the responsibility of the Maryland Transit Administration Police, which is part of the Maryland Transit Administration of the state Maryland Department of Transportation, Department of Transportation. The MTA Police also share jurisdiction authority with the Baltimore City Police, governed by a memorandum of understanding. As the enforcement arm of the Baltimore circuit and district court system, the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office (Maryland), Baltimore City Sheriff's Office, created by state constitutional amendment in 1844, is responsible for the security of city courthouses and property, service of court-ordered writs, protective and peace orders, warrants, tax levies, prisoner transportation and traffic enforcement. Deputy Sheriffs are sworn law enforcement officials, with full arrest authority granted by the constitution of Maryland, the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission and the Sheriff of the City of Baltimore. The United States Coast Guard, operating out of their shipyard and facility (since 1899) at Arundel Cove on Curtis Creek, (off Pennington Avenue extending to Hawkins Point Road/Fort Smallwood Road) in the Curtis Bay, Baltimore, Curtis Bay section of southern Baltimore City and adjacent northern Anne Arundel County. The U.S.C.G. also operates and maintains a presence on Baltimore and Maryland waterways in the
Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...
and
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...
. "Sector Baltimore" is responsible for commanding law enforcement and search & rescue units as well as aids to navigation.


Baltimore City Fire Department

The city of Baltimore is protected by the over 1,800 professional firefighters of the Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD), which was founded in December 1858 and began operating the following year. Replacing several warring independent volunteer companies since the 1770s and the confusion resulting from Know-Nothing Riot of 1856, a riot involving the "Know-Nothing" political party two years before, the establishment of a unified professional fire fighting force was a major advance in urban governance. The BCFD operates out of 37 fire stations located throughout the city and has a long history and sets of traditions in its various houses and divisions.


State government

Since the legislative redistricting in 2002, Baltimore has had six legislative districts located entirely within its boundaries, giving the city six seats in the 47-member Maryland Senate and 18 in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates. During the previous 10-year period, Baltimore had four legislative districts within the city limits, but four others overlapped the Baltimore County line. , all of Baltimore's state senators and delegates were Democrats.


State agencies


Federal government

Three of the state's eight congressional districts include portions of Baltimore: the Maryland's 2nd congressional district, 2nd, represented by Dutch Ruppersberger; the Maryland's 3rd congressional district, 3rd, represented by John Sarbanes; and the Maryland's 7th congressional district, 7th, represented by Kweisi Mfume. All three are Democrats; a Republican has not represented a significant portion of Baltimore in Congress since John Boynton Philip Clayton Hill represented the 3rd District in 1927, and has not represented any of Baltimore since the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Eastern Shore-based 1st District lost its share of Baltimore after the 2000 census; it was represented by Republican Wayne Gilchrest at the time. Maryland's senior United States senator, Ben Cardin, is from Baltimore. He is one of three people in the last four decades to have represented the 3rd District before being elected to the United States Senate. Paul Sarbanes represented the 3rd from 1971 until 1977, when he was elected to the first of five terms in the Senate. Sarbanes was succeeded by Barbara Mikulski, who represented the 3rd from 1977 to 1987. Mikulski was succeeded by Cardin, who held the seat until handing it to John Sarbanes upon his election to the Senate in 2007. The United States Postal Service, Postal Service's Baltimore Main Post Office is located at 900 East Fayette Street in the
Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...
area. The national headquarters for the United States Social Security Administration is located in Woodlawn, just outside of Baltimore.


Education


Colleges and universities

Baltimore is the home of numerous places of higher learning, both public and private. 100,000 college students from around the country attend Baltimore City's 12 accredited two-year or four-year colleges and universities. Among them are:


Private

*
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
* Baltimore International College * Loyola University Maryland *
Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...
* St. Mary's Seminary and University * Notre Dame of Maryland University * The
Peabody Institute The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...
of Johns Hopkins University * Stratford University (Baltimore campus)


Public

* Baltimore City Community College *
Coppin State University Coppin State University (Coppin) is a public historically black university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is part of the University System of Maryland and a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. In terms of demographics, the Coppin State stu ...
*
Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...
* University of Baltimore *
University of Maryland, Baltimore The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1807, it comprises some of the oldest professional schools of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy, social work and nursing in the United States ...


Primary and secondary schools

The city's public schools are managed by Baltimore City Public Schools, and include schools that have been well known in the area: Carver Vocational Technical High School, Carver Vocational-Technical High School, the first African American vocational high school and center that was established in the state of Maryland; Digital Harbor High School, one of the secondary schools that emphasizes information technology; Lake Clifton Eastern High School, which is the largest school campus in Baltimore City of physical size; the historic Frederick Douglass Senior High School (Baltimore, Maryland), Frederick Douglass High School, which is the second oldest African American high school in the United States;
Baltimore City College Baltimore City College, known colloquially as City, City College, and B.C.C., is a college preparatory school with a liberal arts focus and selective admissions criteria located in Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in October 1839, B.C.C. is the thir ...
, the third oldest public high school in the country; and Western High School (Baltimore, Maryland), Western High School, the oldest public all-girls school in the nation. Baltimore City College (also known as "City") and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (also known as "Poly") share the nation's second-oldest high school Baltimore City College football, football rivalry.


Transportation

The city of Baltimore has a higher-than-average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 30.7 percent of Baltimore households lacked a car, which decreased slightly to 28.9 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Baltimore averaged 1.65 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.


Roads and highways

Baltimore's highway growth has done much to influence the development of the city and its suburbs. The first limited-access highway serving Baltimore was the Baltimore–Washington Parkway, which opened in stages between 1950 and 1954. Maintenance of it is split: the half closest to Baltimore is maintained by the state of Maryland, and the half closest to Washington by the National Park Service. Trucks are only permitted to use the northern part of the parkway. Trucks (tractor-trailers) continued to use U.S. Route 1 in Maryland, U.S. Route 1 (US 1) until Interstate 95 in Maryland, Interstate 95 (I-95) between Baltimore and Washington opened in 1971. The Interstate highways serving Baltimore are Interstate 70 in Maryland, I-70, I-83 (the Jones Falls Expressway), I-95, Interstate 395 (Maryland), I-395, Interstate 695 (Maryland), I-695 (the Baltimore Beltway), Interstate 795 (Maryland), I-795 (the Northwest Expressway), Interstate 895 (Maryland), I-895 (the Harbor Tunnel Thruway), and Interstate 97, I-97. The city's mainline Interstate highways—I-95, I-83, and I-70—do not directly connect to each other, and in the case of I-70 end at a park and ride lot just inside the city limits, because of highway revolts, freeway revolts in Baltimore. These revolts were led primarily by Barbara Mikulski, a former United States senator for Maryland, which resulted in the abandonment of the original plan. There are two tunnels traversing Baltimore Harbor within the city limits: the four-bore Fort McHenry Tunnel (opened in 1985 and serving I-95) and the two-bore Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, Harbor Tunnel (opened in 1957 and serving I-895). The Baltimore Beltway crosses south of Baltimore Harbor over the Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore), Francis Scott Key Bridge. The first interstate highway built in Baltimore was I-83, called the Jones Falls Expressway (first portion built in the early 1960s). Running from the downtown toward the northwest (NNW), it was built through a natural corridor, which meant that no residents or housing were directly affected. A planned section from what is now its southern terminus to I-95 was abandoned. Its route through parkland received criticism. Planning for the Baltimore Beltway antedates the creation of the Interstate Highway System. The first portion completed was a small strip connecting the two sections of I-83, the Baltimore-Harrisburg Expressway and the Jones Falls Expressway. The only United States Numbered Highways, U.S. Highways in the city are US 1, which bypasses downtown, and U.S. Route 40 in Maryland, US 40, which crosses downtown from east to west. Both run along major surface streets; however, US 40 utilizes a small section of a freeway cancelled in the 1970s in the west side of the city originally intended for Interstate 170 (Maryland), Interstate 170. State routes in the city also travel along surface streets, with the exception of Maryland Route 295, which carries the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. The Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT) is responsible for several functions of the road transportation system in Baltimore, including repairing roads, sidewalks, and alleys; road signs; street lights; and managing the flow of transportation systems. In addition, the agency is in charge of vehicle towing and traffic cameras. BCDOT maintains all streets within the city of Baltimore. These include all streets that are marked as state and U.S. highways as well as the portions of I-83 and I-70 within the city limits. The only highways within the city that are not maintained by BCDOT are I-95, I-395, I-695, and I-895; those four highways are maintained by the Maryland Transportation Authority.


Transit systems


Public transit

Public transit in Baltimore is mostly provided by the Maryland Transit Administration (abbreviated "MTA Maryland") and Charm City Circulator. MTA Maryland operates a comprehensive MTA Maryland bus service, bus network, including many local, express, and commuter buses, Baltimore Light RailLink, a light rail network connecting Hunt Valley, Maryland, Hunt Valley in the north to BWI Airport and Cromwell Station / Glen Burnie (Baltimore Light Rail station), Cromwell (Glen Burnie, Maryland, Glen Burnie) in the south, and a Baltimore Metro SubwayLink, subway line between Owings Mills, Maryland, Owings Mills and Johns Hopkins Hospital. A proposed rail line, known as the Red Line (Baltimore), Red Line, which would link the Social Security Administration to
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (abbreviated JHBMC or Bayview; formerly Francis Scott Key Medical Center and Baltimore City Hospitals) is teaching hospital trauma center, neonatal intensive care unit, geriatrics center, and is home to the Johns ...
and perhaps the Canton and Dundalk, Maryland, Dundalk communities, was cancelled by Governor Larry Hogan; a proposal to extend Baltimore's existing subway line to
Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...
, known as the Green Line (Baltimore), Green Line, is in the planning stages. The Charm City Circulator (CCC), a shuttle bus service operated by Veolia Transportation for the Baltimore Department of Transportation, began operating in the downtown area in January 2010. Funded partly by a 16 percent increase in the city's parking fees, the circulator provides free bus service seven days a week, picking up passengers every 15 minutes at designated stops during service hours. The CCC's first bus line, the Orange route, travels between Hollins Market and Harbor East. Its Purple route, launched June 7, 2010, operates between Fort Avenue and 33rd St. The Green route runs between Johns Hopkins and City Hall. The Charm City Circulator operates a fleet of diesel and hybrid vehicles built by DesignLine, Orion, and Van Hool. Baltimore also has a water taxi service, operated by Baltimore Water Taxi. The water taxi's six routes provide service throughout the city's harbor, and was purchased by
Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...
CEO
Kevin Plank Kevin Audette Plank (born August 13, 1972) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Plank is the founder and executive chairman of Under Armour, a manufacturer of sportswear, footwear and accessories, based in Baltimore, Maryland ...
's Sagamore Ventures in 2016. In June 2017, The BaltimoreLink started operating; it is the redesign of the region's initial bus system. The BaltimoreLink runs through downtown Baltimore every 10 minutes via color-coded, high-frequency CityLink routes.


Intercity rail

Baltimore is a top destination for Amtrak along the Northeast Corridor. Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore), Penn Station is one of the busiest in the country. In FY 2014, Penn Station was ranked the List of busiest Amtrak stations, seventh-busiest rail station in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
by number of passengers served each year. The building sits on a raised "island" of sorts between two open trenches, one for the Jones Falls Expressway and the other for the tracks of the Northeast Corridor (NEC). The NEC approaches from the south through the two-track, Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, which opened in 1873 and whose limit, sharp curves, and steep grades make it one of the NEC's worst bottlenecks. The NEC's northern approach is the 1873 Union Tunnel (Baltimore), Union Tunnel, which has one single track (rail), single-track bore and one double track, double-track bore. Just outside the city, BWI Rail Station, Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Thurgood Marshall Airport Rail Station is another stop. Amtrak's ''Acela Express'', ''Palmetto (train), Palmetto'', ''Carolinian (train), Carolinian'', ''Silver Star (Amtrak train), Silver Star'', ''Silver Meteor'', ''Vermonter (train), Vermonter'', ''Crescent (train), Crescent'', and ''Northeast Regional'' trains are the scheduled passenger train services that stop in the city. Additionally, MARC Train, MARC commuter rail service connects the city's two main intercity rail stations, Camden Station and Penn Station, with Washington, D.C.'s Union Station (Washington, D.C.), Union Station as well as stops in between. The MARC consists of 3 lines; the Brunswick, Camden and Penn. On December 7, 2013, the Penn Line began weekend service.


Airports

Baltimore is served by two airports, both operated by the Maryland Aviation Administration, which is part of the Maryland Department of Transportation. Baltimore–Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, generally known as "BWI", lies about to the south of Baltimore in neighboring Anne Arundel County. The airport is named after Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native who was the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. In terms of passenger traffic, BWI is the 22nd busiest airport in the United States. As of calendar year 2014, BWI is the largest, by passenger count, of three major airports serving the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. It is accessible by I-95 and the Baltimore–Washington Parkway via Interstate 195 (Maryland), Interstate 195, the Baltimore Light Rail, and Amtrak and MARC Train at BWI Rail Station. Baltimore is also served by Martin State Airport, a general aviation facility, to the northeast in Baltimore County. Martin State Airport is linked to downtown Baltimore by Maryland Route 150 (Eastern Avenue) and by MARC Train at Martin State Airport (MARC station), its own station.


Pedestrians and bicycles

Baltimore has a comprehensive system of bicycle routes in the city. These routes are not numbered, but are typically denoted with green signs displaying a silhouette of a bicycle upon an outline of the city's border, and denote the distance to destinations, much like bicycle routes in the rest of the state. The roads carrying bicycle routes are also labelled with either bike lanes, sharrows, or Share the Road signs. Many of these routes pass through the downtown area. The network of bicycle lanes in the city continues to expand, with over added between 2006 and 2014. Alongside bike lanes, Baltimore has also built bike boulevards, starting with Guilford Avenue in 2012. Baltimore currently has three major trail systems within the city. The Gwynns Falls Trail runs from the Inner Harbor to the I-70 Park and Ride, passing through Gwynns Falls Park and possessing numerous branches. There are also many pedestrian hiking trails traversing the park. The Jones Falls Trail currently runs from the Inner Harbor to the Cylburn Arboretum; however, it is currently undergoing expansion. Long-term plans call for it to extend to the Mount Washington (Baltimore Light Rail station), Mount Washington Light Rail Stop, and possibly as far north as the Falls Road stop to connect to the Robert E. Lee boardwalk north of the city. It will also incorporate a spur alongside Western Run. The two aforementioned trails carry sections of the East Coast Greenway through the city. There is also the Herring Run Trail, which runs from Maryland Route 147, Harford Road east to its end beyond Sinclair Lane, utilizing Herring Run Park; long-term plans also call for its extension to
Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...
and north to points beyond. Other major bicycle projects include a protected cycle track installed on both Maryland Avenue and Mount Royal Avenue, expected to become the backbone of a downtown bicycle network. Installation for the cycletracks is expected in 2014 and 2016, respectively. In addition to the bicycle trails and cycletracks, Baltimore has the Stony Run Trail, a walking path that will eventually connect from the Jones Falls north to Northern Parkway, utilizing much of the old Ma and Pa Railroad corridor inside the city. In 2011, the city undertook a campaign to reconstruct many sidewalk ramps in the city, coinciding with mass resurfacing of the city's streets. A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Baltimore the 14th most walkable of fifty largest U.S. cities.


Port of Baltimore

The port was founded in 1706, preceding the founding of Baltimore. The Maryland colonial legislature made the area near Locust Point as the
port of entry In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has border security staff and facilities to check passports and visas and to inspect luggage to assure that contraband is not imported. Internati ...
for the
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
trade with England. Fells Point, the deepest point in the natural harbor, soon became the colony's main ship building center, later on becoming leader in the construction of Baltimore Clipper, clipper ships. After Baltimore's founding, mills were built behind the wharves. The California Gold Rush led to many orders for fast vessels; many overland pioneers also relied upon canned goods from Baltimore. After the Civil War, a coffee ship was designed here for trade with Brazil. At the end of the nineteenth century, European ship lines had terminals for immigrants. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made the port a major transshipment point. Currently the port has major roll-on/roll-off facilities, as well as bulk facilities, especially steel handling. Water taxis also operate in the Inner Harbor. Governor Ehrlich participated in naming the port after Helen Delich Bentley during the 300th anniversary of the port. In 2007, Duke Realty Corporation began a new development near the Port of Baltimore, named the Chesapeake Commerce Center. This new industrial park is located on the site of a former General Motors plant. The total project comprises in eastern Baltimore City, and the site will yield of warehouse/distribution and office space. Chesapeake Commerce Center has direct access to two major Interstate highways (I-95 and Interstate 895 (Maryland), I-895) and is located adjacent to two of the major Port of Baltimore terminals. The Port of Baltimore is one of two seaports on the U.S. East Coast with a dredge to accommodate the largest shipping vessels. Along with cargo terminals, the port also has a passenger cruise terminal, which offers year-round trips on several lines, including Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas and Carnival's Pride. Overall five cruise lines have operated out of the port to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, while some ships traveled to New England and Canada. The terminal has become an embarkation point where passengers have the opportunity to park and board next to the ship visible from Interstate 95. Passengers from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey make up a third of the volume, with travelers from Maryland, Virginia, the District and even Ohio and the Carolinas making up the rest.


Environment

Baltimore's Inner Harbor, known for its skyline waterscape and its tourist-friendly areas, was horribly polluted. The waterway was often filled with garbage after heavy rainstorms, failing its 2014 water quality report card. The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore took steps to remediate the waterways, in hopes that the harbor would be fishable and swimmable once again.


Trash interceptors

Baltimore has four water wheel trash interceptors for removing garbage in area waterways. One is at the mouth of
Jones Falls The Jones Falls is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 stream in Maryland. It is impounded to create Lake Roland before running through the city of Baltim ...
in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, dubbed "Mr. Trash Wheel." Another, "Professor Trash Wheel" was added at Harris Creek in the Canton neighborhood in 2016, with "Captain Trash Wheel" following at Mason Creek in 2018 and "Gwynnda, the Good Wheel of the West" at the mouth of the Gwynns Falls in 2021. A February 2015 agreement with a local waste-to-energy plant is believed to make Baltimore the first city to use reclaimed waterway debris to generate electricity.


Other water pollution control

In August 2010, the National Aquarium assembled, planted, and launched a floating island, floating wetland island designed by Biohabitats in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Hundreds of years ago Baltimore's harbor shoreline would have been lined with tidal wetlands. Floating wetlands provide many environmental benefits to water quality and habitat enhancement, which is why the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore has included them in their Healthy Harbor Initiative pilot projects. Biohabitats also developed a concept to transform a dilapidated wharf into a living pier that cleans Harbor water, provides habitat and is an aesthetic attraction. Currently under design, the top of the pier will become a Constructed wetland, constructed tidal wetland. Other projects to improve water quality include the Blue Alleys project, expanded street sweeping, and stream restoration.


Media

Baltimore's main media outlet since 2010 is Baltimore Brew, edited by Fern Shen and Mark Reutter, investigative journalists of the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun, respectively. ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' was sold by its Baltimore owners in 1986 to the Times Mirror Company, which was bought by the Tribune Company in 2000. Since the recent sale, The Baltimore Sun prints some local news along with regional and national articles. The ''Baltimore News-American'', another long-running paper that competed with the Sun, ceased publication in 1986. The city is home to the Baltimore Afro-American, an influential African American newspaper founded in 1892. In 2006, ''The Baltimore Examiner'' was launched to compete with ''The Sun''. It was part of a national chain that includes ''The San Francisco Examiner'' and ''The Washington Examiner''. In contrast to the paid subscription ''Sun'', ''The Examiner'' was a free newspaper funded solely by advertisements. Unable to turn a profit and facing a deep recession, ''The Baltimore Examiner'' ceased publication on February 15, 2009. Despite being located 40 miles northeast of
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, Baltimore is a major media market in its own right, with all major English language television networks represented in the city. WJZ-TV 13 is a CBS owned and operated station, and WBFF 45 (Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox) is the flagship of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest station owner in the country. Other major television stations in Baltimore include WMAR-TV 2 (American Broadcasting Company, ABC), WBAL-TV 11 (NBC), WUTB 24 (TBD (TV network), TBD), WBFF, WBFF-DT2 45.2 (MyNetworkTV), WNUV 54 (The CW, CW), and WMPB 67 (PBS). Baltimore is also served by low-power station WMJF-CD 39 (Ion Television, Ion), which transmits from the campus of Towson University. Nielsen ranked Baltimore as the 26th-largest television market for the 2008–2009 viewing season and the 27th-largest for 2009–2010. Arbitron's Fall 2010 rankings identified Baltimore as the 22nd largest radio market.


Notable people

* Spiro Agnew, 39th US vice president * Cass Elliot (1941–1974), born Ellen Naomi Cohen, singer, member of The Mamas & the Papas * Eubie Blake, early jazz pianist and composer * Tom Clancy, author of the Ryanverse, Jack Ryan Book Series * Elijah Cummings, civil rights advocate and congressman of the US House of Representatives * Gervonta Davis, professional boxer, four-time world champion in two weight classes * Daniel Coit Gilman, founding president of
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
* David Hasselhoff, actor, producer, businessman * Kyle Harrison, professional lacrosse player, first black Tewaaraton Award recipient * Johns Hopkins, American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist; namesake of
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
* Thurgood Marshall, African-American US Supreme Court Justice * H. L. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English * Ric Ocasek, American musician and frontman of the Cars *
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
, speaker of the US House of Representatives * Michael Phelps, Olympic swimmer * Edgar Allan Poe, poet * Emily Post, author of etiquette books *
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
, baseball player * Jada Pinkett Smith, actress, singer, and businesswoman * M. Carey Thomas, American educator, Suffragette, suffragist, and linguist * Anne Tyler, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist * John Waters, filmmaker * Frank Zappa, singer, guitarist, composer, and satirist * Julie Bowen, actress * Muggsy Bogues, basketball player


International relations

Baltimore's own Sister City Committees recognize eight of these sister cities, indicated above with a "B" notation. Three additional sister cities have "emeritus status": * Genova, Italy (1985) * Ely O'Carroll, Ireland * Bremerhaven, Germany (2007)


See also

* Baltimore Development Corporation * Baltimore in fiction * ''Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin' Sound and Its Legacy'' (Book on the history of the History of the Appalachian people in Baltimore, Appalachian migrants' move into the city in the 20th century) * History of the Germans in Baltimore, Maryland * :Cemeteries in Baltimore * ''''


Explanatory notes


References


Citations


General bibliography

* Brooks, Neal A. & Eric G. Rockel (1979). ''A History of Baltimore County''. Towson, Maryland: Friends of the Towson Library. * Crenson, Matthew A. (2017). ''Baltimore: A Political History''. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. * Dorsey, John, & James D. Dilts (1997). ''A Guide to Baltimore Architecture''. Third Edition. Centreville, Maryland: Tidewater Publishers. (First edition published in 1973.) . * Hall, Clayton Coleman (1912). ''Baltimore: Its History and Its People''. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company
Vol. 1
* Orser, Edward W. (1994). ''Blockbusting in Baltimore: the Edmonston Village Story''. University Press of Kentucky. * John Thomas Scharf, Scharf, J. Thomas (1879). ''History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day''. Baltimore: John B. Piet
Vol. 1Vol. 2Vol. 3
* * Townsend, Camilla (2000). ''Tales of Two Cities: Race and Economic Culture in Early Republican North and South America: Guyaquil, Ecuador, and Baltimore, Maryland''. University of Texas Press. . * *


Further reading

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External links

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Baltimore City Council

Visit Baltimore – official Destination Marketing Organization

Baltimore City Public Schools

Baltimore Development Corporation


historic maps at the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, Sheridan Libraries.
Papenfuse: Atlases and Maps of Baltimore City and County, 1876–1915 & Block Maps
April 2005 * ''The Wall Street Journal''
Baltimore Demographics
2015. {{Authority control Baltimore, 1729 establishments in Maryland Cities in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, Cities in Maryland Former capitals of the United States Independent cities in the United States Maryland counties on the Chesapeake Bay Maryland counties Maryland populated places on the Chesapeake Bay Populated places established in 1729 Port cities and towns in Maryland Ukrainian communities in the United States Majority-minority counties and independent cities in Maryland