Welcome to Wilmington, Delaware; as the city motto says, “A Place to be Somebody.”  Wilmington is at the northernmost tip of Delaware and is often considered part of the Philadelphia metro area.  Most TV and radio stations that Wilmington gets are Philly-based, but the city is distinct enough on its own merits.

The city’s population is about 72,000 people.  New Castle County, of which Wilmington is the seat, has more than 500,000, which accounts for about two thirds of the population in the entire state.

The area was first colonized by the Swedish in the early 1600s, and was progressively taken over by the Dutch and then the British.  The pacifist Quakers had a strong influence on the areas early politics, but Delaware still became one of the 13 original colonies to secede from Britain, and was the first state to ratify the US constitution.

The population of Wilmington exploded during the Civil War, as did the manufacturing industry, which started cranking out all types of goods to serve troops on both sides.  World Wars I and II had a similar effect on the city’s economy, and many of the factories operated 24 hours a day during those times.

In the 1980s, Delaware and Wilmington adopted several laws that made it very friendly to banks, including limiting the maximum interest rate a bank could charge customers.  This led to many major credit card companies and bancs moving their headquarters to the region, and banking continues to be the most important part of Wilmington’s economy.  Bank of America, Chase, and Barclay’s all are headquartered in Wilmington, as are parts of ING and others.  The concentration of banking interests made the city the setting for popular novel and movie “Fight Club,” though the city’s name was never mentioned in the film.

The other two major industries in the state are insurance and chemical production.  American Life Insurance and Blue Cross of Delaware both call Wilmington home, as does Du Pont and Hercules Incorporated.  The Du Pont family has been part of the Wilmington landscape for centuries, the company’s founded fled a revolutionary France in 1800 and settled in the city, by the Civil War the company was the largest gunpowder supplier to the US Military.  Hercules Inc is actually the result of an antitrust ruling against the DuPont Company in the early 1900s that separated some of DuPont’s interests into different corporations.

The climate here is moderate.  It’s halfway between Washington, DC and New York City (about 120 miles to each), and the weather approximates this location.  There’s snow, but generally only during the first couple months of the year, and the summer temperatures are nice and pleasant.