Best Web Design in Portland, ME (2026)

Web Design for Portland, Maine

Portland is Maine's largest city, a peninsula of cobblestone streets and working waterfront on Casco Bay that has repeatedly burned and rebuilt itself, living up to its motto "Resurgam." Once a shipping and fishing powerhouse, it now runs on tourism, insurance, finance, and medicine, and it punches far above its weight as a nationally celebrated food-and-brewery town. The Old Port, lighthouses, and a lobster-forward dining scene define its modern identity.

AppWT works with Portland, ME businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Portland

Also known as. The Forest City. "Resurgam" (Latin for "I shall rise again," the city motto, paired with a phoenix symbol).

History. English naval captain Christopher Levett was granted 6,000 acres in Casco Bay in 1623 to found a settlement. In 1786 residents of Falmouth Neck separated to form a town they named Portland. When Maine became a state in 1820, Portland served as its first capital (before the capital moved to Augusta in 1832). The city adopted the motto "Resurgam" ("I shall rise again") in 1832. The Great Fire of July 4, 1866 destroyed about 1,800 buildings, 1,200 of them homes, leaving roughly 10,000 residents homeless; it was the largest fire in an American city up to that time, five years before the Great Chicago Fire. The Forest City Cemetery, established in the 1850s, gave rise to the nickname that spread to the whole city.

Local economy. The 21st-century economy runs mostly on services: tourism, insurance, financial services, and medical services. Historically the city was built on commercial shipping, the marine economy, and light industry. A working waterfront and Casco Bay port keep commercial fishing and lobstering central to the local trade. As Maine's most populous city (roughly 68,000 residents), Portland is the economic hub of southern Maine.

Culture and community. Bon Appetit named Portland its 2018 Restaurant City of the Year, making it the smallest city ever to win the honor, ahead of New York and Los Angeles. The dining scene is famous for dishes like Eventide's brown butter lobster roll and its oysters. Portland claims the most microbreweries per capita of any U.S. city, per the Brewers Association. The Portland Sea Dogs, a Double-A affiliate (long tied to the Boston Red Sox) since 1994, play at Hadlock Field and moonlight as the Maine Whoopie Pies, Maine Red Snappers, Maine Bean Suppahs, and Maine Lobster Bakes. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow grew up in Portland; his boyhood home, the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, still stands. In 2009 Portlanders assembled what was billed as the world's biggest lobster roll, a 61-foot-9.5-inch creation using 48 pounds of lobster meat.

What makes Portland distinct. Portland is home to the International Cryptozoology Museum, displaying a full-furred Bigfoot model, stuffed jackalopes, and yeti footprint casts. The catastrophic Great Fire struck on the Fourth of July, likely sparked by a firecracker or cigar ash near a boat house. The Sea Dogs regularly rebrand as Maine foods, from Whoopie Pies to Lobster Bakes. Longfellow, as a boy, would sit on a favorite rock near Portland Head Light and watch the sea. The phoenix and "Resurgam" motto reflect a city that literally rose again after being burned, including by the British Royal Navy in 1775 and again in the 1866 fire.

Portland Landmarks and Local Life

• Portland Head Light (1791) - the oldest lighthouse in Maine and one of the most photographed in the world, guarding the harbor entrance from adjacent Cape Elizabeth
• The Old Port - a preserved district of cobblestone streets and 19th-century brick warehouses
• Victoria Mansion - an ornate Italianate house museum
• Portland Museum of Art - the oldest and largest public art institution in Maine
• The Wadsworth-Longfellow House
• Hadlock Field - home of the Sea Dogs