The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (commonly known as Rhode Island) is the state with the longest official name. Rhode (pronounced "Road") Island is part of the New England region (located in the northeast part of the country), and was the first of the thirteen original American colonies to declare independence from British rule, signaling the start of the American Revolution.

The state's common name, Rhode Island, actually refers to the largest island in Narragansett Bay, also known as Aquidneck Island, on which the city of Newport is located. Aquidneck Island is also locally referred to as Newport - though it in fact has three distinct townships on it. The origin of the name is unclear. Some historians think that Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, upon discovering Block Island, just southwest in the Atlantic Ocean, named it Rhode Island because of its similarity in shape to the Greek island of Rhodes.[citation needed] Later settlers, mistaking which island Verrazzano was referring to, gave the name to Aquidneck Island instead. Other historians believe that the name is derived from Roodt Eylandt, old Dutch for "red island," given to the island by Dutch explorer Adriaen Block due to the red clay on the island's shore.[citation needed]

Despite most of the state being part of the mainland, the name Rhode Island leads some out-of-staters to mistakenly believe that the entire state is an island, sometimes confusing it with Long Island.[citation needed] Rhode Island is nicknamed "The Ocean State".

-- Courtesy of Wikipedia

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