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is a city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city had a total population of 56,271. Vineland, Millville and Bridgeton are the three principal New Jersey cities of the Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses those three cities and all of Cumberland County for statistical purposes.
Vineland was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on May 28, 1880, from portions of Landis Township, based on the results of a referendum held three days earlier. On July 1, 1952, Vineland borough and Landis Township were merged to form Vineland city, based on the results of a referendum held on February 5, 1952.
Charles K. Landis purchased of land in 1861, near Millville, New Jersey and along an existing railroad line with service to Philadelphia, to create his own utopian city. The first houses were built in 1862, and train service was established to Philadelphia and New York City, with the population reaching 5,500 by 1865.
In addition to banning the sale of alcohol, Landis required that purchasers of land in Vineland had to build a house on the purchased property within a year of purchase, that 2½ acres of the often-heavily wooded land had to be cleared and farmed each year, and that adequate space be placed between houses and roads to allow for planting of flowers and shade trees along the routes through town. Landis Avenue was constructed as a wide and about long road running east-west through the center of the community, with other, narrower roads connecting at right angles to each other.
After determining that the Vineland soil was well-suited for growing grapes (hence the name), Landis started advertising to attract Italian grape growers to Vineland, offering of land that had to be cleared and used to grow grapes. Thomas Bramwell Welch founded Welch's Grape Juice, and purchased the locally-grown grapes to make "unfermented wine" (or grape juice).