Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 45.9 square miles (118.9 km2), of which 14.7 square miles (38.1 km2) is land and 31.2 square miles (80.9 km2), or 68.00%, is water. The nearest city is Portland. Cape Elizabeth shares a border with South Portland to the north and Scarborough to the south.
The town includes two islands. Ram Island is a small and unoccupied island directly adjacent to Ram Island Ledge, home of the recently privatized Ram Island Ledge Light. The 226-acre (91 ha) Richmond Island, originally inhabited by Native Americans, then English settlers, is now uninhabited except by a small herd of sheep. It is privately owned by the Sprague family, the most prominent property owners in Cape Elizabeth, whose substantial estate also includes Ram Island Farm on the mainland.
Cape Elizabeth is the home of three coastal parks: Fort Williams Park, Two Lights State Park, and Crescent Beach State Park. Additionally, the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust, a private non-profit corporation, protects 560 acres (230 ha) of land on 22 different parcels for public use, maintaining a large system of connecting non-motorized trails on most.
Read more about this topic: Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
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—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)