America's Sailing Capital and Colonial Maryland — the US Naval Academy, the finest concentration of colonial Georgian architecture in the US, and a Chesapeake Bay crab cake culture that defines Maryland identity
Annapolis is the capital of Maryland and the seat of the US Naval Academy — a city of 40,000 on the Chesapeake Bay that packs more intact 18th-century architecture into a walkable colonial historic district than any other American city. The Maryland State House (1779) is the oldest US state capitol still in continuous legislative use and the only US state house to have served as the US national capitol (the Continental Congress met here in 1783–84 and George Washington resigned his commission here). The US Naval Academy (founded 1845) anchors the city's identity — the academy's campus, with i…
Annapolis was founded in 1649 by Puritan settlers from Virginia and became Maryland's colonial capital in 1694. It reached its zenith as a wealthy tobacco-trade port in the mid-18th century, when its architecture — now the most intact collection of colonial Georgian buildings in the US — was built. The Maryland State House hosted the Treaty of Paris ratification (1784) and Washington's resignation as commander-in-chief. The Naval Academy's establishment in 1845 gave Annapolis its post-colonial identity. During the Civil War, the Naval Academy was briefly relocated to Newport, Rhode Island whe…