One of the original 13 colonies, Connecticut played a prominent role in the development of the U.S. The Hartford Courant, the nation's oldest continuously operating newspaper, was an influential voice for the rebel cause during the American Revolution and President Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party in the 1860s. In 1636, Thomas Hooker, a minister who fled England to freely practice his Puritan beliefs, headed south from Boston with about 100 members of his congregation to found Hartford, Connecticut. In 1662, Governor John Winthrop Jr. obtained a royal charter from the king to combine the Connecticut, New Haven, and Saybrook settlements.

Even before the American Revolution, Connecticut was strongly against British loyalism, and it became the fifth state in 1788 to grant its approval of the Constitution.

The Constitution State was one of the first to introduce railroads, and today Amtrak connects Boston and Washington, D.C., with part of the original mainline of the New Haven, the most prominent railway service of the 1800s.

#2 for Patent Activity in the U.S. (Bloomberg State Innovation Index, 2020)

#7 in Foreign Direct Investment in USD among U.S. States in 2017 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2017)

6th Largest Recipient of Defense Contracts, $19.7 billion in 2019 (Department of Defense, 2021)

$16.2B in Goods Exported by Connecticut’s Manufacturers (International Trade Administration, 2020)

#3 for Employees with Advanced Degrees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020)

4th Most Innovative Economy (Bloomberg State Innovation Index, 2020)

#6 in Workforce Productivity (Defined by GDP per capita, Statista, 2021)

#9 Best State for the New Economy (Information Technology Innovation Foundation, 2020)

#5 in the United States for Offshore Wind Power (Business Facilities Magazine, 2021)

9th Greenest State in U.S. (WalletHub, 2021)

#6 for Human Capital Investment (Milken Institute, 2020)

Advanced Manufacturing

Aerospace and Defense

Film and Digital Media

Financial Services

Insurance

Life Sciences

Renewable Energy

Technology

Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development

George Norfleet

T: (860) 500-2388

F: (860) 270-8032

450 Columbus Blvd, Ste. 5

Hartford, CT 06103