11 Things Delawareans Do That Would Horrify the Rest of America

Delaware is the first state, the smallest state, and arguably the most overlooked state — which suits Delawareans just fine, because they’ve been quietly running the country’s corporate infrastructure from a small office in Wilmington while everyone else was busy paying attention to literally anywhere else. With three counties, zero sales tax, and a population smaller than most American cities, Delaware has developed a culture of deeply local pride, stubborn distinctiveness, and habits that the rest of America would find somewhere between peculiar and completely inexplicable. Welcome to the First State. Try to find it on a map first.

1. Incorporate a business in Delaware without ever setting foot there

More than 60% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware, including many that have never had a single employee, office, or meaningful presence in the state. Delaware’s corporate laws are so favorable that businesses exist there purely on paper, in a single building in Wilmington called the Corporation Trust Center that officially houses over 285,000 companies. Delawareans accept this surreal fact as simply how things work. The rest of America doesn’t know it’s happening.

2. Cross into another state just to buy groceries or go to the mall

Delaware is so small that residents in the northern part of the state routinely shop in Pennsylvania or New Jersey without considering it a significant undertaking. The state is roughly 30 miles wide at its widest point. Crossing a state line for a Target run is not an adventure — it is a Tuesday. Delaware residents have driven through two states on a lunch break and thought nothing of it.

3. Defend the Dogfish Head brewery with the energy of a state religion

Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware put the state on the craft beer map by making genuinely experimental, world-class beers that nobody expected from a tiny Mid-Atlantic state. Delawareans regard Dogfish Head with the fierce local pride usually reserved for sports teams and founding documents. Suggesting you prefer a beer from another state is allowed, technically, but you will be doing it alone.

4. Drive to Maryland for the beach and act like it’s their own

Delaware has Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach — perfectly lovely beaches that Delawareans love fiercely. But they also casually annex Ocean City, Maryland as part of their general beach territory, driving down for the weekend with the proprietary ease of people who consider the whole coastline a regional amenity. Ocean City technically belongs to Maryland. This is not how Delaware treats it.

5. Take the absence of sales tax as a point of profound personal pride

Delaware has no sales tax. None. Delawareans mention this the way other states mention their sports championships — with frequency, with satisfaction, and as evidence of superior governance. Residents from neighboring states drive into Delaware specifically to make large purchases. Delawareans watch them arrive, ring them up, and feel deeply vindicated about where they chose to live.

6. Refer to their three counties like they’re three entirely different worlds

Delaware has exactly three counties: New Castle in the north, Kent in the middle, and Sussex in the south, and the cultural differences between them are treated with the gravity of international borders. New Castle is urban, corporate, Wilmington-adjacent. Kent is government and agriculture. Sussex is beach towns and retirees. Delawareans from one county speak about the others with the careful diplomacy of foreign correspondents.

7. Get genuinely defensive when someone confuses them with a Canadian province

“Delaware” and “Ontario” are not the same thing, and while most Americans wouldn’t make this mistake, Delaware residents have developed a hair-trigger sensitivity to any suggestion that their state is unremarkable, forgettable, or somehow less than fully real. Delaware exists. Delaware matters. Delaware was first. This is not up for debate and Delawareans will explain this to you for as long as you’re willing to stand there.

8. Treat the Caesar Rodney statue like a personal ancestor

Caesar Rodney rode 70 miles on horseback through a stormy night to cast the deciding vote for independence in 1776, and Delaware has never forgotten it. His image is on the state quarter, his statue stands in Wilmington, and Delawareans invoke his midnight ride with the intimacy of a family story told at Thanksgiving. He has been gone for 245 years. He remains extremely present.

9. Go crabbing with the casual dedication of a professional operation

Blue crabs from the Delaware Bay are a summertime institution, and Delawareans approach crabbing with equipment, technique, and patience that suggests genuine expertise. A successful crabbing haul is prepared, eaten, and discussed with the satisfaction of a meal that was earned. Outsiders who expect the process to be quick and easy are gently, wordlessly corrected by the experience itself.

10. Live in a state with no mountains, no major landmarks, and call it perfect anyway

Delaware’s highest natural point is Ebright Azimuth at 447.85 feet above sea level — which is less a summit than a gentle suggestion of elevation. There are no mountains, no dramatic canyons, no sweeping vistas. Delaware is flat, quiet, and largely agricultural outside Wilmington, and Delawareans have made complete peace with this. They are not trying to be Colorado. They are trying to be Delaware, and they have succeeded entirely.

11. Take “The First State” more seriously as a title than most states take their mottoes

Delaware ratified the Constitution on December 7, 1787 — first among the thirteen original colonies — and has been dining on this historical distinction ever since. “The First State” appears on license plates, in tourism materials, and in casual conversation with a frequency that suggests Delawareans worry someone might forget. Nobody is forgetting. Delaware will not be allowing it.

Delaware doesn’t need your validation, your attention, or your recognition that it exists — though it would quietly appreciate all three. It has been here since before the country was a country, it has been holding the corporate paperwork together for the Fortune 500 since before most states got their act together, and it has been selling people from New Jersey tax-free goods for decades without ever asking for so much as a thank you. Small? Sure. Easy to overlook? Absolutely. But the First State has a quiet confidence that comes from knowing exactly who it is, exactly what it does, and exactly why it matters — even if it has to explain this to you every single time you meet.