Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston, the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England, and its surrounding areas, home to 4,941,632. The most stringent definition of the region, used by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, consists of most of the eastern third of mainland Massachusetts, excluding the Merrimack Valley and most of Southeastern Massachusetts, though most definitions (including the U.S. Census definition) include much of these areas and portions of southern New Hampshire.
While the city of Boston covers 48.4 square miles (125 km2) and has 675,647 residents as of the 2020 census, the urbanization has extended well into surrounding areas and the Combined Statistical Area (CSA in the rest of the document), which includes the Providence, Rhode Island, Manchester, New Hampshire, Cape Cod and Worcester areas, has a population of more than 8.4 million people, making it one of the most populous such regions in the U.S.
Some of Greater Boston's most well-known contributions involve the region's higher education and medical institutions. Greater Boston has been influential upon American history and industry. The region and the state of Massachusetts are global leaders in biotechnology, health care, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade.
Greater Boston is ranked tenth in population among US metropolitan statistical areas, home to 4,941,632 people as of the 2020 United States census, and seventh among combined statistical areas, with a population of 8,493,824. The area has hosted many people and sites significant to American culture and history, particularly American literature, politics, and the American Revolution.
Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, passengers of the Mayflower. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution.
The Greater Boston region has played a powerful scientific, commercial, and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, the region was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, and transcendentalist movements. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legally recognize same-sex marriage as a result of the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Boston. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the Boston region, including the Adams and Kennedy families.
Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, founded in 1636, with the largest financial endowment of any university, and whose Law School has spawned a contemporaneous majority of United States Supreme Court justices. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet", in reference to the high concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and quality of innovation which have emerged in the vicinity of the square since 2010. Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world.
Contents
Geography
Boundary definitions
The most restrictive definition of the Greater Boston area is the region administered by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The MAPC is a regional planning organization created by the Massachusetts legislature to oversee transportation infrastructure and economic development concerns in the Boston area. The MAPC includes 101 cities and towns that are grouped into eight subregions. These include most of the area within the region's outer circumferential highway, I-495. In 2013, the population of the MAPC district was 3.2 million, which was 48% of the total population of Massachusetts, in an area of 1,422 square miles (3,680 km2), of which 39% is forested and an additional 11% is water, wetland, or other open space.
The cities and towns included in this definition are:
Two definitions are used by the United States Census to define the Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metro Area or Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metropolitan NECTA, which is defined as a New England City and Town Area. The metro area definition is based on counties, while the NECTA definition is based on city and town boundaries. Counties included in the county-based definition include:
Essex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Strafford County, New Hampshire
The NECTA definition includes all of the communities from the MAPC definition, as well as the Merrimack Valley communities, parts of southern New Hampshire (northward to Milford and Hampton, and the Taunton area.
The widest definition of the metropolitan area based on commuting patterns, is defined by the U.S. Census as the Boston–Worcester–Providence combined statistical area. This area consists of the following counties in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire:
Subregions
Massachusetts
Central Massachusetts
Montachusett-North County
South County
Blackstone River Valley
North Shore
Cape Ann
Merrimack Valley
MetroWest
Southeastern Massachusetts
Cape Cod
South Coast
South Shore
New Hampshire
Lakes Region
Seacoast
Rhode Island
Blackstone Valley
East Bay
Climate
Most of the Boston area has humid subtropical climates (Cfa under the Köppen climate classification system), with high humidity and precipitation year-round. The northwestern regions near New Hampshire and Worcester have humid continental Dfa and Dfb conditions due to January means being below −3 °C (27 °F) and July means below 22 °C (72 °F).
Demographics
Greater Boston has a sizable Jewish community, estimated at between 210,000 people, and 261,000 or 5–6% of the Greater Boston metro population, compared with about 2% for the nation as a whole. Contrary to national trends, the number of Jews in Greater Boston has been growing, fueled by the fact that 60% of children in Jewish mixed-faith families are raised Jewish, compared with roughly one in three nationally. The 2020 PRRI Atlas found that 35% of the Boston metro area identified as Protestant while 26% identified as Catholic.
The City of Boston also has one of the largest LGBT populations per capita. As of 2006, it ranks fifth of all major cities in the country (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind Seattle, Atlanta, and Minneapolis), with 12.3% of the city identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
The 40 most diverse Census tracts in the Boston CSA:
The 40 census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Black American:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Asian American:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Irish American:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Italian American:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Portuguese American:
Census tracts in the Boston CSA with French or French Canadian listed as first ancestry:
Largest cities and towns
Cities and towns with a population over 50,000 as of the 2020 census include:
Education
The area includes many community colleges, two-year schools, and internationally prominent undergraduate and graduate institutions. The graduate schools include schools of law, medicine, business, technology, international relations, public health, education, and religion. Greater Boston contains seven R1 Research Institutions as per the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. This is, by far, the highest number of such institutions in a single Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States.
Economy
Major companies
References:
Transportation
Interstates
I-84
I-90
I-93
I-95
I-190
I-195
I-290
I-293
I-295
I-395
I-495
U.S. Routes
US 1
US 3
US 6
US 20
US 44
US 202
State Highways
Route 1A
Route 2
Route 2A
Route 3
Route 3A
Route 4
Route 6A
Route 9
Route 12
Route 13
Route 14
Route 15
Route 16
Route 18
Route 19
Route 22
Route 24
Route 25
Route 27
Route 28
Route 30
Route 31
Route 32
Route 32A
Route 35
Route 36
Route 37
Route 38
Route 39
Route 40
Route 49
Route 53
Route 56
Bridges and tunnels
Boston University Bridge, carrying Route 2
Callahan Tunnel, carrying Route 1A Northbound
Charles M. Braga Jr. Memorial Bridge, carrying Interstate 195
Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge, carrying Route 138
Fore River Bridge, carrying Massachusetts Route 3A
Harvard Bridge, carrying Route 2A
Longfellow Bridge, carrying Massachusetts Route 3, US Route 3, and the MBTA Red Line
William Felton "Bill" Russell Bridge, carrying Route 99
Sumner Tunnel, carrying Route 1A Southbound
Ted Williams Tunnel, carrying I-90
Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Tunnel, carrying I-93 and Routes 1 and 3 concurrently
Tobin Bridge, carrying Route 1
Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, carrying Interstate 93, Route 1 and Route 3 concurrently
Airports
Logan International Airport in Boston, 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of downtown Boston, New England's largest transportation center
Manchester–Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire
T. F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island
Hanscom Field in Bedford
Norwood Memorial Airport
Worcester Regional Airport
Beverly Regional Airport
Lawrence Municipal Airport
Rail and bus
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is the primary operator of transit in Greater Boston. It operates the MBTA subway system and the MBTA bus network in Boston and inner suburbs, as well as the MBTA Commuter Rail system and the MBTA ferry network serving Greater Boston.
Other public transit includes Amtrak intercity rail service, Logan Express service to Logan International Airport, and privately-operated intercity bus and ferry systems. A number of regional transit authorities operate local bus service:
Brockton Area Transit Authority
Cape Ann Transportation Authority
Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority
Lowell Regional Transit Authority
Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority
MetroWest Regional Transit Authority
Montachusett Regional Transit Authority
Rhode Island Public Transit Authority
Worcester Regional Transit Authority
Ocean transportation
Port of Boston (Massport)
Cape Cod Canal
Sports
Annual sporting events include:
The Boston Marathon, which follows a course from Hopkinton to Boston
The Head of the Charles Regatta
The Lenox Industrial Tools 301, Sylvania 300 and New Hampshire Indy 225 auto races at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway oval track.
The Greater Boston League, a high school athletic conference in Massachusetts.