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Note: Alaska and Hawaii are shown out of
position for reference only and are not to scale.
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Massachusetts State Outline Map
Massachusetts, the
7th smallest
state in the
United States, is
bordered on the north by
New Hampshire and Vermont,
on the west by New York, on
the south by Connecticut
and Rhode Island, and on
the south and east by the
Atlantic Ocean. It is at the center of the
New England region and is
the most populous New England state. At the
southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy,
arm-shaped peninsula, Cape Cod.
The islands Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket
lie south of Cape Cod, across
Nantucket Sound.
Massachusetts is called "the Bay State" because of several
large bays, which
distinctly shape its coast:
Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod
Bay, to the east, and
Buzzards Bay, to the south. A few cities and towns on
the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border are adjacent to
Narragansett Bay.
Boston is the largest
city, at the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, the mouth of
the Charles River, the longest
river entirely within Massachusetts. Most Bay Staters live
in the Boston area, which
cover most of eastern Massachusetts.
Eastern
Massachusetts is fairly densely populated and mostly
suburban.
Western Massachusetts
is more rural and sparsely populated, especially in
the Berkshires, the branch of
the Appalachian Mountains
that dominates the western quarter of the state. The most
populous part of western Massachusetts is the
Pioneer Valley, straddling the
Connecticut River, which
flows across Western
Massachusetts from north to south.
Massachusetts has 351 cities and
towns. Every part of the
state is within an incorporated city or town, but many towns
include large rural areas. The state's 14
counties have few government functions and serve as
little more than judicial districts.
The
geographic center of Massachusetts is in the town of
Rutland, in central
Worcester County.
Physical geography
Massachusetts extends from the mountains of the Appalachian
system in the west to the sandy beaches and rocky shorelines
of the Atlantic coast. The entire state was covered in ice
during the Wisconsin
glaciation, which shaped today’s landscape. Much of the
state remains covered in glacial till
and dotted with typical glacial features, such as
kettle ponds,
drumlins, eskers,
and moraines. Apart from a few
alluvial floodplains, soils tend to be rocky, acidic, and
not very fertile.
Topography
Elevation
and relief are greatest in the western part of the state and
increase somewhat from south to north. The
Taconic Mountains, part of
the Appalachian system, run along the western border with
New York, reaching 2,624 feet (800 meters) at Mount Everett
in the state's southwest corner. The
Housatonic-Hoosic
valley separates the Taconics from
The Berkshires, a broad belt of steeply rolling hills
that are a southern extension of the
Green Mountains of Vermont.
They extend south to the border of Connecticut. The state’s
highest point is Mount Greylock,
at 3,491 feet (1,064 meters). Mount Greylock lies between
the Taconic Range to the west and the
Hoosac Range to the east. The
Hoosac Range connects the Green Mountains with the
Berkshires.
Between the
Berkshires and the rest of the state lies the
Connecticut River Valley,
known within Massachusetts as the
Pioneer Valley. This ancient rift
valley appeared in the Mesozoic
Era when North and South American broke away from Europe and
Africa. Dinosaur footprints near
Mount Tom bear witness to that era,
and series of basalt ridges including
Mount Toby, Mount Holyoke,
Mount Tom, and others extending south into
Connecticult and
the valley's abrupt thousand-foot (300 meter) western
escarpment illustrate the tectonic forces. More than a
hundred million years later, as the
Pleistocene epoch ended, receding glaciers left moraines
that dammed the Connecticut River, creating
Lake Hitchcock. Lacustrine
silt deposits replaced soil scraped away by the glaciers,
leaving behind deep, productive soil after the river
breached the obstructing moraine and the lake disappeared.
East of
this valley is an area of rolling uplands dotted with lakes
and dissected by streams flowing into the Connecticut River
in the west and into the
Merrimack, Quinebaug,
Blackstone, or Charles
rivers, or into other shorter, coastal rivers in the east.
Just to the east of the Pioneer Valley, hills rise steeply
toward the divide between the Connecticut River basin and
the river basins to the east. This divide runs through
central Massachusetts, though the summit of
Mount Wachusett, the highest
point in the state east of the Connecticut River, rising to
2,006 feet (611 meters).
To the east
of this divide, the elevation of the hilltops gradually
decreases, and the landscape is more gently rolling. Within
30 miles (50 kilometers) of the coast, few hills exceed 300
feet (100 meters) in elevation. Near the coast, swamps,
marshes, and ponds alternate with low hills. However, the
Blue Hills, just south
of Boston, rise above the surrounding landscape. The state
probably takes its name from the
Massachusett name for their highest point,
Great Blue Hill, with an
elevation of 635 feet (194 meters).
The
Massachusetts coastline is deeply indented with bays, coves,
and estuaries, separated by narrow
promontories. Some of these form natural harbors that gave
rise to the state’s historic ports, including
Newburyport,
Gloucester,
Salem, Boston, and
New Bedford. The
state has a few small barrier
islands, the largest of which is
Plum Island. The
state’s largest promontory is the Cape
Cod peninsula. Its backbone is formed by glacial
moraines, but much of its coastline has been shaped by the
longshore drift of coastal sand, which forms many of its
famous sandy beaches. To the south of Cape Cod, glacial
moraines rise above the ocean surface to form the state’s
largest islands: Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, the
Elizabeth Islands, and
Monomoy Island.
Climate
Massachusetts has a
humid continental climate. Winters are cold, with
average January temperatures below freezing nearly
throughout the state, and summers are warm.
The hilly
western interior of Massachusetts has the coldest winters.
Stockbridge, in
the Berkshires, has a January average temperature of 21.6° F
(-5.8°C). Winters are more moderate along the eastern coast.
Boston has the state's highest January temperature—35.6° F
(2 C), but this temperature is elevated by an
urban heat island. The
average January temperature in
Hingham, also on the
coast but 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Boston, is 27.5° F
(-2.5° C). Summer temperatures are highest in the state's
urban centers, due to the heat island effect. Boston's July
temperature averages 81.7° F (27.6° C), and the July
temperature in the central Massachusetts city of
Worcester averages
79.2° F (26.2° C). By contrast, the coolest average summer
temperatures occur in the Berkshires and on the state's
offshore islands. The average temperature in August, the
warmest month on Nantucket Island, is 68.7° F (20.4° C). The
average in July in Stockbridge is 68.9° F (20.5° C). Both
daily and seasonal variation in temperature are greatest in
the western interior and lowest along the coast.
Precipitation is fairly evenly spread throughout the year in
Massachusetts. Boston averages 43 in (1091 mm) of
precipitation annually, with a maximum monthly average of
4.3 in (109.2 mm) in November and a minimum monthly average
of 2.9 in (73.7 mm) in July.
Springfield, in
the Pioneer Valley, averages 45.8 in (1163.9 mm) of annual
precipitation, with a 4.6 in (116.8 mm) maximum monthly
average in June and a 2.7 in (68.6 mm) minimum monthly
average in February. Interior Massachusetts tends to have a
summer precipitation maximum due to convection in air masses
heated over the interior, which gives rise to frequent
thunderstorms. These occur less frequently over the coast,
due to the relative lack of convection over the cooler ocean
waters. On the other hand, cold, dry air masses over the
interior of the state tend to suppress winter precipitation.
All of
Massachusetts experiences substantial snowfall in a typical
winter. Total annual snowfalls average 43.3 in (110.0 cm) in
Boston and 69.1 in (175.5 cm) in Worcester. The ground is
often covered with snow for weeks at a time in January and
February.
Although
Massachusetts has a humid climate, its climate is sunny
compared to other humid climates at the same latitude. In
Boston, the average percentage of possible sunshine for
every month is at least 50%. In summer and early autumn, the
average percentage of possible sunshine is greater than 60%,
according to National Weather Service data.
Environment
Most of
Massachusetts is forested. Even suburban eastern
Massachusetts is heavily wooded. Trees tend to grow in
around houses in this region, such that when one looks out
over eastern Massachusetts from the top of a high hill, one
sees a vista of treetops, punctuated only occasionally by a
church steeple, smokestack, or radio tower.
According
to U.S. government data, 46% of Massachusetts land is
devoted to forest. Another 7% is rural parkland, which is
also mainly forested. Urban and suburban development takes
up 36% of the state’s land, but even this land, outside of
the main urban centers, consists largely of houses on wooded
properties. About 4% of the state’s land is cropland, and
less than 1% is pasture. About 2% of the state’s land is
marsh or other wetland. The remainder of the land is taken
up with other uses, such as transportation.
Two main
types of mixed forest
predominate in Massachusetts. Across most of the state,
including eastern Massachusetts, south central Massachusetts,
and the Connecticut River Valley, the
Northeastern coastal
forest is a mix of hardwood deciduous oak, maple, beech,
and hickory and coniferous pine trees. In the Berkshires and
north central Massachusetts, the more boreal
New England-Acadian
forest prevails. This boreal forest
consists mainly of coniferous spruce and hemlock, occasional
pine, and deciduous birch trees. Roughly since the Civil
War, farms have reverted to woodland. Lumbering activity has
decreased in recent decades, so the more undisturbed forests
have reclaimed some characteristics of old growth.
The forests
(and wooded suburbs) are home to a variety of invertebrate
and vertebrate animal species. The state has an abundance of
white-tailed deer, and
there have been concerns about deer overpopulation because
many of the deer’s natural predators, such as
wolves, have historically been
hunted to extinction within Massachusetts. However,
coyotes have been moving into
Massachusetts to fill the ecological niche formerly occupied
by wolves. Bears,
wild turkey, and even
moose have returned from northern
refuges. In 1846 Thoreau
traveled to Northern Maine to observe and write about moose,
which he thought were well on the way to extinction. If he
were alive today, he might find them almost within walking
distance of Walden Pond.
Pollution,
dams, and introduction of exotic species have decimated some
native fish populations. Efforts to mitigate these problems
and restore Atlantic salmon
to the Connecticut River watershed have had very little
success. The other widespread native
salmonid, the brook trout,
persists in cold upland streams, particularly above
waterfalls and other barriers that exclude introduced
brown and
rainbow trout.
American shad runs have
retained at least a fraction of their former abundance, and
smallmouth bass,
sunfish, and
pike populations are healthy enough to support angling.
Wetlands,
including swamps and both salt- and fresh-water marshes, are
important ecologically in Massachusetts. Many of the state’s
fish and bird species inhabit wetland environments.
The state’s
urban environments are partly wooded but also bear a heavy
load of built structures and human environments that are not
hospitable to many other species. At the same time,
pollutants in waterways, mainly from urban sources, can be
toxic to many species or may support blooms of algae and
bacteria that lead to hypoxia and the
death of aquatic animals. However, Greater Boston boasts
extensive parklands, and efforts have been made in
Massachusetts to reduce environmental pollution in both
urban and rural parts of the state.
Human geography
According
to census data, the population of Massachusetts is 91.4%
urban. Hence, the state’s human geography is largely the
geography of its urban areas. The state’s economy is also
overwhelmingly urban. Only 0.2% of the state’s labor force
is employed in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations.
Settlement
The
BosWash (Boston-Washington, D.C.)
megalopolis extends
into Massachusetts, obviously. It occupies most of eastern
Massachusetts starting at Worcester as well as the
Springfield-Holyoke-Northampton urbanization that joins
Connecticut's Hartford-New
Haven urbanization.
According
to the definitions of the
U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), all of
Massachusetts falls within a
metropolitan
statistical area (MSA), except for the offshore islands
of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. According to 2005
Census estimates,
62% of the population of Massachusetts lives within the
Boston MSA. Other Massachusetts metropolitan areas are the
Worcester MSA (with 12% of the state's population), the
Springfield MSA (11%), the
Providence-Fall
River-New Bedford MSA (9%), the
Barnstable (Cape
Cod) MSA (4%), and the
Pittsfield MSA (2%).
In each of
these metropolitan areas, population is concentrated in a
number of densely populated cities and towns. In the Boston
MSA, for example, the City of Boston and a cluster of
densely populated inner suburbs within the
Route 128 belt
account for more than half of the population of the
metropolitan area. The older cities of
Lawrence,
Lowell, and
Brockton lie outside
this urban core but are also densely populated.
However,
population is growing fastest in the outer peripheries of
the state's metropolitan areas, where new housing
construction is adding dwelling units. While the state as a
whole shows little population growth, or even a population
decline in some years due to a net loss from migration, the
belt of towns along
Interstate 495,
near the western edge of the Boston MSA, shows steady
population growth.
The
Springfield and Worcester MSAs include some very thinly
populated rural areas. In the Berkshires and in the hills
west of Worcester are a number of towns with population
densities below 40 per square mile (compared with the state
average of 810 per square mile).
Although
the U.S. Census Bureau prepares population estimates for
MSAs, these statistical units are defined by county borders.
Because Massachusetts counties are relatively large and may
contain several urban centers, MSAs are an imprecise way to
describe the state’s urban clusters. For example, Lawrence,
Lowell, and Brockton all have closer economic ties with
neighboring towns than they do with one another. The Lowell
region draws commuters from nearby New Hampshire who might
not consider commuting all the way to Boston. Yet these
areas are all part of the Boston MSA. Similarly, the cities
of Leominster and
Fitchburg form the
core of a distinct urban cluster. Because they lie within
Worcester County,
however, they are considered part of the Worcester MSA.
Economic geography
A
finer-grained statistical unit than the MSA is the
New England City
and Town Area, or NECTA. NECTAs take advantage of the
administrative subdivision of the entire territory of
Massachusetts and other New England states into towns and
cities. (No part of Massachusetts is unincorporated county
territory.) Each NECTA consists of a cluster of cities and
towns defined by commuting patterns, which therefore
correspond roughly to local labor markets. While the U.S.
Census Bureau defines metropolitan areas by county
boundaries, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) offers data on
employment by NECTA.
By far the
largest NECTA in Massachusetts is the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy
(Greater Boston) NECTA, which
covers eastern Massachusetts and extends into southern New
Hampshire. This NECTA consists of a central
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA Division, including the City
of Boston and the surrounding cities and suburbs. The other
satellite NECTA divisions in the Greater Boston NECTA are
the Brockton-Bridgewater-Easton
NECTA Division, the
Framingham NECTA Division, the
Haverhill-North
Andover-Amesbury
NECTA Division (extending well into southeastern New
Hampshire), the Lawrence-Methuen-Salem
NECTA Division (extending into southern New Hampshire), the
Lowell-Billerica-Chelmsford
(or Lowell) NECTA Division (extending into southern New
Hampshire), the Lynn-Peabody-Salem
NECTA Division, the Nashua
NECTA Division (mainly in New Hampshire but including a few
Massachusetts towns), and the
Taunton-Norton-Raynham
NECTA Division.
The other
Massachusetts metropolitan NECTAs are the Barnstable Town
NECTA (covering most of Cape Cod),
the Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner
NECTA (in north central Massachusetts), the New Bedford
NECTA (in southeastern Massachusetts), the Pittsfield NECTA
(in far western Massachusetts), the Springfield NECTA (in
the Pioneer Valley and extending into northern Connecticut),
and the Worcester NECTA (in central Massachusetts, extending
into northeastern Connecticut).
According
to the BLS, total nonfarm employment in Massachusetts in
2005 was about 3.2 million. About half of these jobs were
located in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA Division, which
lies entirely within Massachusetts, although this NECTA
accounted for only about 43% of the state’s population,
according to 2005 Census estimates. This indicates either a
higher labor participation rate in central Greater Boston or
a surplus of commuters traveling to work from other parts of
Massachusetts or neighboring states. Clearly, Greater Boston
dominates the employment and economy of Massachusetts.
The other
major centers of employment in Massachusetts are the
Springfield and Worcester NECTAs. The Springfield NECTA
accounts for slightly more than 10% of the jobs in
Massachusetts, while the Worcester NECTA accounts for
slightly less than 10% of the state’s jobs. (Although both
of these NECTAs extend into Connecticut, the towns that they
include in Connecticut account for only a small portion of
their population and, probably, of their employment).
In every
Massachusetts NECTA, service-sector jobs far outnumber
goods-producing (natural resources, construction, and
manufacturing) jobs. Beyond this generalization, there are
some differences in the employment and economic structures
of the state’s NECTAs and NECTA divisions.
In the far
southeastern corner of Massachusetts, the Barnstable Town
NECTA, nearly coterminous with the summer resort region of
Cape Cod, has an atypical employment structure. It has the
lowest share of employment in goods-producing jobs, which
account for only 9.5% of its employment. Most of these jobs
are in the construction sector. Manufacturing jobs account
for only 3.3% of employment, compared with 9.6% for the
state as a whole. On the other hand, the Cape Cod NECTA has
the state’s highest percentages of employment in retail
trade (17.9%, versus 11.1% for the state) and in leisure and
hospitality (16.9%, versus 9.1% for the state). These
numbers reflect the continuing importance to Cape Cod of
summer tourism.
The central
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy division of the larger NECTA with
the same name also has a relatively low percentage (6.7%) of
manufacturing employment. Although this division accounts
for about half of the state’s total employment, it has only
about a third of the state’s manufacturing jobs. Its largest
manufacturing subsector is the production of computers and
electronic products (28% of the division’s manufacturing
jobs). This subsector is centered not in Boston’s urban
core, but in the suburbs to the north and west, along
Route 128. The
economy of central Greater Boston is even more biased toward
service provision than that of the rest of the state.
The
particular economic strength of central Greater Boston is
knowledge-intensive activities. It accounts for 62.2% of the
state’s information sector jobs, and 66.0% of the jobs in
the software-publishing subsector. Central Greater Boston
has 68.8% of the state’s financial sector jobs, and 92.5% of
the jobs in the investment subsector. It has 69.3% of the
state’s jobs in management and technical consulting. Greater
Boston is noted nationwide for its prestigious institutions
of higher education, such as
Harvard University and
MIT,
and the region is home to 77.8% of the state’s
higher-education employment. Together, the
knowledge-intensive information, financial, professional and
business services, and education sectors account for 36.6%
of the jobs in central Greater Boston, compared with 28.8%
of the jobs in Massachusetts as a whole and 23.2% for the
United States as a whole.
The
satellite NECTA divisions that lie on the periphery of the
Greater Boston NECTA all have higher percentages of
employment in manufacturing than central Greater Boston or
than Massachusetts as a whole. Many of these satellite NECTA
divisions are centered on historic manufacturing cities,
such as Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, and Brockton. The
BLS breaks down manufacturing employment only for the
Framingham and Lowell NECTA divisions, to the west and
northwest of Boston, respectively. In both of these
divisions, computer and electronics manufacturing accounts
for well over half of manufacturing employment. Except for
Lowell, these satellite NECTA divisions also have higher
shares of employment in retail trade than central Greater
Boston or Massachusetts as a whole. These divisions, located
along the major highways radiating from Boston, are
particularly rich in shopping centers and wholesalers. The
Lowell and Framingham divisions have even higher shares of
employment in the information sector than central Greater
Boston. This reflects the strength of these regions in the
software publishing and telecommunications subsectors. On
the other hand, these satellite divisions have lower shares
of employment in financial services and in health and
education services than the state average, reflecting the
regional dominance of central Greater Boston in these areas.
The Framingham division, however, has the state’s highest
percentage of jobs in professional and business services
(18.5% of employment versus 14.4% statewide), reflecting
that region’s strength in technology.
The New
Bedford NECTA has the state’s second-highest percentage
(16.6%) of manufacturing employment. It has the state’s
lowest percentages of employment in the financial sector
(3.1%) and in professional and business services (6.25%).
The
Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner NECTA has the state’s highest
percentage (17.8%) of manufacturing employment. It has by
far the state’s lowest percentage of employment (1.0%) in
the information sector and the second-lowest rate of
employment in professional and business services (6.73%). On
the other hand, this NECTA has the state’s highest
percentage of employment (16.4%) in government.
The
Worcester NECTA has a relatively high percentage (12.0%) of
employment in manufacturing. Next to the Barnstable Town
NECTA, it has a high percentage (14.9%) of employment in the
healthcare sector. It has the lowest percentage of
employment (8.7%) in the leisure and hospitality sector,
reflecting the relative underdevelopment of its tourism
industry.
The
Springfield NECTA also has relatively high (12.9%)
manufacturing employment. It has the state’s largest
percentage of employment in the transportation and utilities
subsector (4.5%, versus 2.6% for the state as a whole). It
has the second-highest percentage (16.3%) of jobs in
government.
Despite the
small size of the Pittsfield NECTA, its employment by sector
is similar to that of Massachusetts as a whole for most
sectors. However, it has the state’s highest percentage of
employment (20.4%) in the education and healthcare sector.
It also has the second-highest share of employment (13.2%)
in the leisure and hospitality sector. This reflects the
importance of tourism in the Berkshires to the region’s
economy.
Interactive Massachusetts State Map
Explore the state of Massachusetts with the dynamic map below. You can
zoom, pan and even get a satellite map view.
Move your cursor over the markers on the map to
learn more about Massachusetts.
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