ABSTRACT
Maryland ranks high in the nation by most of the standards used to indicate provision of services to the people. It is organized into twenty-four counties, including Baltimore City, which is legally a county. Counties are the most important form of government in Maryland. Maryland is one of twenty-nine state systems with no township government, and one of four with no independent school districts. The people of Maryland are served by a superb network integrating all of the various modes of transportation. Port-dependent industries can be found in every part of Maryland. Maryland is served by three major, international airports and thirty-nine smaller airports and heliports. Maryland is crisscrossed with an extensive network of over 25,000 mi of highways and 1,000 mi of rail routes. It is near the top of the national mass-media communications hierarchy with two major national centers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas, as well as several local regional centers.