Senator George Aiken coined the term "Northeast Kingdom" in 1949 for Vermont's Caledonia, Essex and Orleans counties in northeastern Vermont, and the name stuck.

Farthest from the cosmopolitan centers of Boston, Montréal and New York City, the Northeast Kingdom preserves best the life of old Vermont with its tidy farms, beautiful mountain vistas, village greens and town commons, and friendly, unhurried people.

Northeast Kingdom towns are small, and villages are tiny. There are no cities. St Johnsbury, the kingdom's largest town, has only 7,600 people.

The exotic Northeast Kingdom name helps to give a special feeling to this region of Vermont, a part of the state that is even more rural than the rest of this very rural state.

Ready for the band concert, Craftsbury Common VT.

There's nothing royal about its small, untouristy farming villages, but they have their surprises. One of them, Greensboro (population 771) is home to Circus Smirkus, Vermont's own internationally-renowned youth circus and summer circus camp.

For more information:

Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce
2000 Memorial Drive
St. Johnsbury VT 05819
Tel: 802-748-3678, 800-639-6379
nekinfo@nekchamber.com

—by Tom Brosnahan

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