The climate of Delaware is humid and temperate. The average daily temperature at New Castle Airport in northern Delaware is 54 °F (12 °C), varying from an average high of 86 °F (30 °C) in July to an average low of 23 °F (−5 °C) in January. Temperatures in southern Delaware usually run about two degrees higher than these figures. August, which has the second warmest temperatures after July, is also the rainiest month, with an average precipitation of about 5.5 inches (140 mm), whereas February has the least precipitation, an average of about 3 inches (75 mm). The annual average precipitation is nearly 45 inches (1,140 mm).

Plant and animal life

Delaware is a transition zone between plants typical of Pennsylvania and New York and those common to coastal Maryland and Virginia. Hardwoods are characteristic in the north, but pines become mixed with hardwoods in the south. Deer, foxes, raccoons, opossums, and muskrats are common. Beaches and marshes are a winter refuge for many wildfowl, as well as a stop on the migratory paths of such birds as sandpipers.

Population composition

In colonial times Delaware’s population consisted largely of people from the British Isles, slaves from Africa, and some Germans, along with a few remaining Native Americans. During the 19th century, immigrants, attracted by the industries in and around Wilmington, included Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, and Russian Jews. In the late 20th century a small Puerto Rican community took shape in Wilmington, and Guatemalans began migrating to Sussex county to work in the poultry industry. A group of Native Americans of mixed ethnicity, called Moors, live in the vicinity of Cheswold in Kent county, and descendants of the Nanticoke live near Millsboro in Sussex county. There is also a small population of Asians among New Castle county’s scientific and engineering professionals. More than two-thirds of the state’s population is white, one-fifth African American, and the remainder Native American, Hispanic, and Asian. Roman Catholics and Methodists predominate among the state’s religious denominations.

Settlement patterns

About two-thirds of Delaware’s population lives in New Castle county. Wilmington, the largest city, is situated in the area where the Brandywine, Christina, and Delaware rivers come together. The suburbs of Wilmington, including the smaller cities of Newark and New Castle, account for the largest share of the state’s population. To the south of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which bisects southern New Castle county, the land has a more rural character. Interrupting the farm and woodlands of this flat, relatively low-density area are the city of Dover, together with its suburbs and a U.S. Air Force base, the seashore communities of Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach—which attract many retirees—and towns such as Milford, Georgetown, Laurel, Selbyville, and Millsboro.

Demographic trends

After 1945, economic development, especially in the chemical industry, attracted many skilled newcomers to northern Delaware, which, in turn, spurred the development of suburbs around Wilmington. During that same period the population of Wilmington declined, and its composition changed. Many whites left the city for the suburbs, and African Americans migrated from the Delmarva Peninsula and farther south to take their place. African Americans now constitute almost two-thirds of the city’s population. More recently, population growth in the more-rural counties of Kent and Sussex has expanded, as new industrial plants and resort communities have been built there and as poultry farming has grown.

Agriculture

Although the number of farms and the amount of farm acreage are in decline, agriculture remains important. Most cash income from farming comes from poultry raising, centred in Sussex county. Soybeans are an important crop; other major agricultural products include corn (maize), milk, and vegetables. The coastal and inland waters yield fish, clams, and crabs.

The construction of the Du Pont Highway (the first north-south highway to extend through the state [built 1911–23], the brainchild of T. Coleman du Pont) through rural southern Delaware brought profound changes to the agriculture of that area. In the early 1920s farmers in Sussex county discovered the profitability of trucking young chickens to the Philadelphia poultry market. By the end of World War II, poultry raising had become the mainstay of the county’s agriculture and the state’s major agricultural moneymaker. After the war the poultry industry continued to grow in size and efficiency. The owners of large processing operations became dominant, supplying chicks and feed to farmers on a contract basis. Today Sussex county is a national centre for the production of broilers (young chickens).