Title I: The State and Its Government, is the collection of New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated which relate to the state's government as a whole. Like other portions of the RSAs, the Title is divided into Chapters and Sections organized in numbers and subsections organized in lowercase letters.
The border of New Hampshire with Vermont is as established and marked on land in accordance with the decision in Vermont v. New Hampshire, 290 U.S. 579 (1933).
It is also a misdemeanor to attempt or actually engage in an act on the banks or bed of the Connecticut river that would alter the boundary line with Vermont, without making an application to the DOT commissioner.
Whoever violates RSA 1:8 is guilty of a misdemeanor if a person, or a felony if any other entity, such as a corporation.
RSA 1:14 divides New Hampshire's maritime boundaries in regard to the offshore waters into three categories, Marginal Seas, High Seas and Submerged Land, all of which have been agreed upon, through agreement with Maine and Massachusetts as well as through international maritime law.
Marginal Seas are anything within three nautical miles (6 km) of the coastal baseline (median between high and low tides at the shore).
The High Seas within New Hampshire are classified as anything within 200 nautical miles (370 km) of the coastal baseline unless the coastal baseline is further than 200 nautical miles (370 km) away. In that case, the boundary is extended to the edge of the continental shelf.
Any land that lies within the Marginal or High Seas claimed by New Hampshire is part of New Hampshire, although to date, only parts of the Isles of Shoals would be included as part of this clause.
1:15 provides a specification for maritime boundaries with other states, as well as its claim of title to the resources within its oceanic territory in this RSA's third section.
Stated as starting at the midpoint of the mouth of the Piscataqua River, heading southeast in a straight line into the mouth of Gosport Harbor in the Isles of Shoals, with a set of lights between Fort Point Light and Whaleback Light marking the boundary within the ocean.
Past Gosport, the boundary then intersects the halfway point of the breakwater between Cedar Island and Star Island, continuing on that course until the end of New Hampshire's oceanic boundary stated in 1:14.
From the land boundary, the nautical boundary heads 118 degrees east of True North, per 1901's Chapter 115, which since has been repealed. However, despite the repeal, the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire has not been disputed, unlike New Hampshire's borders with Maine and Vermont. [The citation listed reads, "excepting from general repeal the following described statutes" and includes 115, 1901, which would seem to mean that 115, 1901 was NOT repealed.]
RSA 3's subchapters have to do with all of New Hampshire's symbolic and heraldic imagery and classifications.
The State Emblem is an elliptical panel, vertically oriented, with a picture of the Old Man of the Mountain surrounded on the top by the state name and on the bottom by the state motto, "Live Free or Die." It may be placed on all printed or related material issued by the state and its subdivisions relative to the development of recreational, industrial, and agricultural resources of the state.
In order to make the official state seal, the following factors need to be in place according to 3:9.
Pittsburg is a town in Coös County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 800 at the 2020 census. It is the northernmost town in New Hampshire and the largest town by area in New England. U.S. Route 3 is the only major highway in the town, although the northern terminus of New Hampshire Route 145 also lies within Pittsburg.
Cornish is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,616 at the 2020 census. Cornish has four covered bridges. Each August, it is home to the Cornish Fair.
The Province of New Hampshire was an English colony and later a British province in New England. It corresponds to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America. It was named after the English county of Hampshire in southern England by Captain John Mason in 1629, its first named proprietor. In 1776, the province established an independent state and government, the State of New Hampshire, and joined with twelve other colonies to form the United States.
The Province of Maine refers to any of the various English colonies established in the 17th century along the northeast coast of North America, within portions of the present-day U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. It existed through a series of land patents made by the kings of England during this era, and included New Somersetshire, Lygonia, and Falmouth. The province was incorporated into the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1650s, beginning with the formation of York County, Massachusetts, which extended from the Piscataqua River to just east of the mouth of the Presumpscot River in Casco Bay. Eventually, its territory grew to encompass nearly all of present-day Maine.
Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf. In a narrower sense, the term is often used as a synonym for the territorial sea.
The Piscataqua River is a 12-mile-long (19 km) tidal river forming the boundary of the U.S. states of New Hampshire and Maine from its origin at the confluence of the Salmon Falls River and Cochecho River to the Atlantic Ocean. The drainage basin of the river is approximately 1,495 square miles (3,870 km2), including the subwatersheds of the Great Works River and the five rivers flowing into Great Bay: the Bellamy, Oyster, Lamprey, Squamscott, and Winnicut.
The Canada–United States border is the longest international border in the world. The boundary is 8,891 km (5,525 mi) long. The land border has two sections: Canada's border with the contiguous United States to its south, and with the U.S. state of Alaska to its west. The bi-national International Boundary Commission deals with matters relating to marking and maintaining the boundary, and the International Joint Commission deals with issues concerning boundary waters. The agencies responsible for facilitating legal passage through the international boundary are the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Machias Seal Island is an island in disputed water between the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, about 8.6 nmi (16 km) southeast from Cutler, Maine, and 10 nmi (19 km) southwest of Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. Sovereignty of the island is disputed by the United States and Canada. The Canadian Coast Guard continues to staff a lighthouse on the island; the first lighthouse was constructed there in 1832.
U.S. Route 302 is an east–west spur of U.S. Route 2 in northern New England in the United States. It currently runs 171 miles (275 km) from Montpelier, Vermont, beginning at US 2, to Portland, Maine, at U.S. Route 1. It passes through the states of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The U.S. state of New Hampshire has held two seals since it declared its independence from Great Britain on January 5, 1776. While both seals have been retained, most people are only familiar with the Great Seal due to its corporate use.
The New Hampshire Highway System is the public roads system of the U.S. state of New Hampshire containing approximately 17,029 miles (27,406 km) maintained by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT). All public roads in the state are called "highways", thus there is no technical distinction between a "road" or a "highway" in New Hampshire.
Great Bay is a tidal estuary located in Strafford and Rockingham counties in eastern New Hampshire, United States. The bay occupies over 6,000 acres (24 km2), not including its several tidal river tributaries. Its outlet is at Hilton Point in Dover, New Hampshire, where waters from the bay flow into the Piscataqua River, thence proceeding southeast to the Atlantic Ocean near Portsmouth. The northern end of the bay, near its outlet, is referred to as Little Bay.
Seavey's Island, site of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, is located in the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine, United States, opposite Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It encompasses 278 acres (1.13 km2).
The Piscataqua River Bridge is a through arch bridge that crosses the Piscataqua River, connecting Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Kittery, Maine, United States. Carrying six lanes of Interstate 95, the bridge is the third modern span and first fixed crossing of the Piscataqua between Portsmouth and Kittery. The two other spans, the Memorial Bridge and the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, are both lift bridges, built to accommodate ship traffic along the Piscataqua. The high arch design of the Piscataqua River Bridge eliminates the need for a movable roadway.
U.S. Route 1 (US 1) is a north–south U.S. Route is the U.S. state of New Hampshire through Hampton and Portsmouth. It lies between Interstate 95 (I-95) and New Hampshire Route 1A (NH 1A).
The Piscataqua River border dispute was a dispute between the US states of Maine and New Hampshire over ownership of Seavey’s Island in the Piscataqua River, which forms the border between Maine and New Hampshire. The dispute was settled in 2002 by the US Supreme Court in favor of Maine.
Badger's Island is located in the Piscataqua River at Kittery, Maine, United States, directly opposite Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It carries U.S. Route 1 between the states, connecting to the Kittery mainland by the Badger's Island Bridge, and to New Hampshire by the Memorial Bridge. Now largely a suburb of Portsmouth, the island features houses, condominiums, restaurants and marinas.
The geology of New Hampshire is similar to that of the rest of New England in comprising a series of metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Late Proterozoic to Devonian age, intruded by many plutons and dikes ranging in age from Late Proterozoic to early Cretaceous. New Hampshire is known as "the Granite State", but less than half is underlain by granite; much of it is schist or gneiss, both of which are metamorphic rocks.