Providence serves as the state capital for Rhode Island and is America’s 24th-most highly populated state capital city.

Founder and religious exile Rogers Williams named the city area in honor of “God’s merciful providence” as a haven for his followers to settle.

Nicknames for Providence range from The Creative Capital and Renaissance City to abbreviations PVD and Prov. Monikers for Rhode Island are The Ocean State and less formally Little Rhody.

Providence represents one of the country’s biggest centers for silverware and jewelry design and manufacturing.

A major tourist attraction in Providence is its State House, the second-biggest marble dome trailing only St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The Westminster Arcade in Providence is America’s oldest enclosed shopping center.

In the southern part of Providence has the famous roadside attraction Nibbles Woodaway, known as the “Big Blue Bug”–the world’s biggest termite.

Research website numbeo lacks sufficient data to rank Rhode Islands’ capital city on its comprehensive global quality of life rating which benchmarks 250 cities worldwide. Numbeo does evaluate Providence on several individual factors. Providence ranks relatively well for traffic commute time (fastest 29%), property price to income ratio (least expensive 34%) and pollution (cleanest 37%). On the negative side, Providence places in the bottom 21% for safety.

Guinness World Records identifies Providence, Rhode Island as where Kevin “KRob” Robinson achieved the longest back flip using a power-assisted bicycle which covered 84 feet (25.6 meters). The Providence-based record was set after Robinson’s second try after crashing on August 13, 2016 during a live TV event called “America’s Navy Presents World of X Games KRob Flips Providence.”

Providence serves as headquarters for two major corporations recognized as belonging to the Forbes Global 2000 world’s biggest companies. These large businesses are Citizens Financial Group and advanced technologies industrial conglomerate Textron.

From an international trade perspective, Rhode Island exported US$2.679 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2019. Its most valuable exports include precious metal scrap (13.3% of Rhode Islands’ global total), gold scrap (7.9%), ferrous scrap (7.3%), immunological products (6.8%), jewelry (6.4%), gold compounds (2.3%), silver powder (1.9%), silver jewelry (1.8%), miscellaneous imitation jewelry of base metal (1%), and chemical goods (also 1%) according to United States Census Bureau data.

The non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Providence County was 12.6% in July 2020, up from 4.3% one year earlier.

Capital Facts for Providence, United States: Quick Reference

 
Providentians celebrate Independence Day as a national holiday each July 4.

Providence’s land area occupies 18.41 square miles (47.67 square kilometers). The state capital’s population was 178,901 Providentians at September 22, 2020.

At the state level, Rhode Islands’ land area covers 1,045 square miles (2,707 square kilometers) home to a population of 1.1 million people.

Providence’s population density is more concentrated averaging 9,718 residents per square mile (3,753 per square kilometer).

Zooming out to Rhode Islands’ state boundaries, population density dilutes to an average 1,011 inhabitants per square mile (390 per square kilometer).