America's Smallest State

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the United States at 1,214 square miles, small enough that you could fit 425 Rhode Islands inside Alaska. Despite its size, Rhode Island has a coastline of 400 miles when all the bays and inlets are counted, and its geographic position at the mouth of Narragansett Bay made it one of the most important ports in colonial America. Providence and Newport were among the wealthiest cities in the British colonies, and Rhode Island merchants were instrumental in the development of both the American textile industry and, notoriously, the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Source: Wikipedia