Rhode Island is one of the fifty states of the United States, located in the New England region in the northeastern United States. It is the smallest of the fifty states, with Providence serving as the capital; for a small state, its official name of "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" is the longest of all of the fifty states. The state was settled by Roger Williams as a center of religious freedom in 1636, and in 1644 it became its own colony. On 4 May 1776, it was the first state to renounce its loyalty to Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War, but on 29 May 1780 it was the last state to ratify the US Constitution, having boycotted the Constitutional Convention. In 2015, the state had a population of 1,056,298, with 81.4% being whites, 5.7% African-Americans, 2.9% Asians, .6% Native Americans, .1% being Pacific Islanders, 6.1% other, and 3.3% multiracial. By ethnicity, 19% are Italians, 18.3% Irish, 12.1% English, 8.2% Portuguese, 8% French, 6.4% French Canadians, 3.3% Dominicans, 3.3% Puerto Ricans, 2.2% Chinese, and 1.8% Guatemalans.
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