The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. With a population approaching 6.5 million in a relatively small area, it is mostly urban and suburban in its eastern half and still primarily rural in the west.
Amesbury Amherst Andover Arlington Attleboro Auburn Ayer Bedford Beverly Billerica Boston Bourne Boxborough Braintree Brewster Brockton Brookline Burlington Cambridge Cape Cod Centerville Charlestown Chatham Chelmsford Chelsea Chicopee Cohasset Concord Danvers Dedham Dennis Port Dorchester East Orleans Eastham Edgartown Fairhaven Fall River Falmouth Fitchburg Foxboro Framingham Franklin Gardner Gloucester Great Barrington Greenfield Hadley Hancock Haverhill Holyoke Hudson Hull Hyannis Ipswich Lawrence Lee Lenox Leominster Lexington Lowell Ludlow Malden Mansfield Marblehead Marlborough Marshfield Mashpee Medford Methuen Middleboro Milford Nantucket Natick Needham New Bedford Newbury Newburyport Newton North Adams North Attleboro North Chelmsford North Dartmouth North Falmouth North Truro Northampton Northborough Norton Norwood Oak Bluffs Orleans Peabody Pittsfield Plymouth Provincetown Quincy Randolph Raynham Revere Rockland Rockport Salem Sandwich Saugus Seekonk Sharon Shrewsbury Somerset Somerville South Deerfield South Wellfleet South Yarmouth Southborough Southbridge Springfield Stockbridge Stoughton Sturbridge Sudbury Sutton Tewksbury Tyngsboro Vineyard Haven Wakefield Waltham Watertown West Boylston West Dennis West Springfield West Yarmouth Westborough Westfield Westford Westminster Westport Weymouth Williamstown Winthrop Woburn Worcester
It is the most populous of the six New England states and contains the region's main urban center, Boston. Massachusetts' colleges and universities, as well as its technology sectors, continue to thrive. The state is also considered a haven for progressive, liberal thought and often sends political candidates to the national scene. Massachusetts was the home state of President John F. Kennedy; however, its last two presidential aspirants, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, were both unsuccessful.
Massachusetts 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 east by the Atlantic Ocean. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula called Cape Cod. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie to the south of Cape Cod. A portion of the north-central Pioneer Valley near South Deerfield, much more rural than Springfield, in the southern part of the valley, or Boston, which is on the coast.
Massachusetts is known as the Bay State because of the several large bays that give its coastline its distinctive shape: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay on the state's east coast, and Buzzards Bay to the south. A few cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border are also adjacent to Narragansett Bay. The name Massachusetts comes from the name of an Algonquian tribe that means "at or about the great hill" or "land of the blue hills."
Boston is the largest city, located at the innermost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River, the longest river entirely within Massachusetts. Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 5,800,000) does not live in the city; eastern Massachusetts on the whole is fairly densely populated and largely 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 populated part of western Massachusetts is the "Pioneer Valley," alongside the Connecticut River, which flows across western Massachusetts from north to south.
The fourteen counties, moving roughly from west to east, are Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, Worcester, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket.
Areas under the control and management of the National Park Service include:
* Adams National Historical Park near Quincy * Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge * Appalachian National Scenic Trail * Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell * Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in Worcester County * Minute Man National Historical Park at Concord * Boston African American National Historic Site in Boston * New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in New Bedford * Boston Harbor Islands * Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor * Boston National Historical Park * Salem Maritime National Historic Site in Salem * Cape Cod National Seashore * Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site at Saugus * Essex National Heritage Area at Salem * Springfield Armory National Historic Site near Springfield * Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline * Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Wild and Scenic Rivers * John F. Kennedy National Historic Site at Brookline * Westfield Wild and Scenic River near Westfield
Interstate highways crossing the state include: I-91, I-95, I-495, I-93, and I-90. Other major state thoroughfares are Route 3 and Route 2. A massive undertaking to depress I-93 in the Boston downtown area called the Big Dig has brought the city's highway system under public scrutiny over the last decade.
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Public transportation in the form of a subway system and longer distance Commuter Rail in the Boston metro area is operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority but mostly runs through the Greater Boston area, including service to Worcester and Providence, Rhode Island. Fifteen other regional transit authorities provide public transportation, mostly outside the MBTA service area.
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Colonial Massachusetts - Massachusetts was the largest New England colony, where many American institutions and traditions were formed. Unlike southern colonies, it was built around small towns, rather than scattered farms. The Pilgrims settled the Plymouth Colony, and Puritan settlers traveled to Salem and later to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As the Puritans gradually secularized and became known as Yankees, the Congregational Church they founded continued to dominate most small towns.
Late in the colonial period Baptist and other dissenting churches emerged, and the elites in Boston and other large towns turned to the Anglican and Unitarian religions. The colony defeated some Indian tribes in King Philip's War in the 1670s, and fought with Britain a series of French and Indian Wars that were characterized by brutal border raids and successful attacks on Canada.
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