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Everything about Greater Boston totally explained

Greater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston, Massachusetts. While Metro Boston tends to be the "Inner Core" surrounding the City of Boston, Greater Boston overlaps the North and South Shores, as well as MetroWest and the Merrimack Valley.
   Greater Boston includes America's tenth-largest metropolitan area, home to over 4.4 million people. It is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country and ranks 56th most populous in the world. Greater Boston contains more urbanized area than the other regions of Massachusetts, such as the more rural Western Massachusetts and the beach communities of Cape Cod. There are a decreasing number of working class communities within Greater Boston. The area features many universities.
   Greater Boston encompasses many significant locations in American history and culture. Examples include the Paul Revere House, the Old North Church, the Old Granary Burying Ground, the site of the Boston Tea Party and that of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution, Lexington and Concord, Walden Pond, the site of the Salem witch trials, and the Christian Science Mother Church. Former Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born in Quincy, Massachusetts, as was John Hancock. Frederick Douglass began his career as an abolitionist in Boston. Former President John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. Former President George H. W. Bush was born in Milton. Malcolm X spent a significant part of his young adulthood in Roxbury, and joined the Nation of Islam while in prison in Charlestown. The National Archives has a regional center in Waltham.

Definitions

Metropolitan Area Planning Council

The most restrictive definition of the Greater Boston area is the region administered by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC). 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. The population of the MAPC is 3,066,394 (as of 2000), in an area of 1,422 square miles,
   The eight subregions and their principal towns are: Inner Core (Boston), Minuteman (Route 2 corridor), MetroWest (Framingham), North Shore (Peabody), North Suburban (Woburn), South Shore (Route 3 corridor), SouthWest (Franklin), and Three Rivers (Norwood).
   Notably excluded from the MAPC and its partner transportation-planning body, the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, are the Merrimack Valley cities of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, much of Plymouth County, and all of Bristol County; these areas have their own regional planning bodies.

New England City and Town Area

The urbanized area surrounding Boston serves as the core of a definition used by the U.S. Census Bureau known as the New England City and Town Area. The set of towns containing the core urbanized area plus surrounding towns with strong social and economic ties to the core area is defined as the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan NECTA. The Boston NECTA is further subdivided into several NECTA divisions, which are listed below. The Boston, Framingham, and Peabody NECTA divisions together correspond roughly to the MAPC area. The total population of the Boston NECTA was 4,540,941 (as of 2000).
  • Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA NECTA Division (97 towns)
  • Framingham, MA NECTA Division (13 towns)
  • Peabody, MA NECTA Division (7 towns)
  • Brockton-Bridgewater-Easton, MA NECTA Division (Old Colony region) (12 towns)
  • Haverhill-North Andover-Amesbury, MA-NH NECTA Division (Merrimack Valley region) (25 towns)
  • Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, MA-NH NECTA Division (part of Merrimack Valley region) (3 towns)
  • Lowell-Billerica-Chelmsford, MA-NH NECTA Division (Northern Middlesex region) (9 towns)
  • Nashua, NH-MA NECTA Division (21 towns)
  • Taunton-Norton-Raynham, MA NECTA Division (part of Southeastern region) (6 towns)

Metropolitan statistical area

An alternative definition used by the U.S. Census Bureau, using counties as building blocks instead of towns, is the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is further subdivided into four metropolitan divisions. The metropolitan statistical area has a total population of about 4.4 million and is the eleventh-largest in the United States. The components of the metropolitan area with their 2005 populations are listed below.
  • Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area (4,411,835)

    Combined statistical area

    A wider functional metropolitan area based on commuting patterns is also defined by the Census Bureau as the Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-RI-NH Combined Statistical Area. This area consists of the metropolitan areas of Manchester, Worcester, and Providence, in addition to Greater Boston. The total population (as of 2005) for the extended region is 7,427,336. The following areas, along with the above MSA, are included in the Combined Statistical Area:
  • Concord, NH Micropolitan Statistical Area (146,681)
  • Laconia, NH Micropolitan Statistical Area (61,547)
  • Manchester-Nashua, NH Metropolitan Statistical Area (401,291)
  • Worcester, MA Metropolitan Statistical Area (783,262)
  • Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA Metropolitan Statistical Area (1,622,520)

    Principal cities and towns

    Boston metropolitan area

    This list has been provided by the Census based on commuter populations, and is generally not what a resident of the area would consider the principal cities of the region.
  • Boston
  • Cambridge
  • Framingham
  • Nashua
  • Newton
  • Peabody
  • Quincy
  • Waltham These, in decreasing order, are the ten largest cities in the Boston NECTA (2006) (External Link)
  • Boston 590,763
  • Lowell 103,229
  • Cambridge 101,365
  • Brockton 94,191
  • Quincy 91,058
  • Lynn 87,991
  • Nashua 87,157
  • Newton 82,819
  • Somerville 74,554
  • Lawrence 70,662

    Satellite areas

    These larger cities fall within the CSA definition of Greater Boston only
  • Fitchburg
  • Leominster
  • Fall River
  • New Bedford
  • Manchester
  • Providence
  • Warwick
  • Worcester

    Major companies

  • Companies along, inside or outside I-495
  • Companies along or inside I-95 (Route 128)
  • Major companies inside Boston (Inside I-95 (Route 128))

    Sports

    Club Sport League Stadium
    Boston Bruins Ice Hockey National Hockey League TD Banknorth Garden (Boston)
    Boston Cannons Lacrosse Major League Lacrosse Nickerson Field (Boston)
    Boston Celtics Basketball National Basketball Association TD Banknorth Garden (Boston)
    Boston Red Sox Baseball Major League Baseball (AL) Fenway Park (Boston)
    New England Patriots Football National Football League (American Football Conference) Gillette Stadium (Foxboro)
    New England Revolution Soccer Major League Soccer Gillette Stadium (Foxboro)
    Annual sporting events include:
  • The Boston Marathon, which follows a course from Hopkinton to Boston
  • The Head of the Charles Regatta

    Higher education

    A long time center of higher education, the area includes many community colleges, two-year schools, and internationally prominent undergraduate and graduate institutions. The graduate schools include highly regarded schools of law, medicine, business, technology, international relations, public health, education, and religion.

    Historical figures and celebrities

  • John Adams - 2nd President of the United States
  • John Quincy Adams - 6th President of the United States
  • Samuel Adams - brewer, patriot
  • Aerosmith - rock band
  • Boston (band) - rock band
  • Ben Affleck - actor
  • Casey Affleck - actor
  • Louisa May Alcott - writer
  • Susan B. Anthony - woman suffragist
  • Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) - pioneer nurseryman
  • Jeff Bagwell - Major League Baseball player
  • Clara Barton - founder of the American Red Cross
  • Leonard Bernstein - classical conductor and composer
  • Eric Bogosian - actor
  • Bobby Brown - R&B singer, songwriter
  • Charles Bulfinch - architect
  • George Herbert Walker Bush - 41st President of the United States
  • Steven Carell - actor/comedian
  • John Cena- professional wrestler
  • Dane Cook - comedian
  • John Singleton Copley - painter
  • Elias James Corey - chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  • Matt Damon - actor
  • Bette Davis - actress
  • Dispatch - rock band
  • Rachel Dratch - comedian and Saturday Night Live alum
  • The Ducky Boys - band
  • James Dole - founder of Dole Food Company
  • Michael Dukakis - former Massachusetts Governor, Democratic candidate in the 1988 election
  • Mary Dyer - religious martyr
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson - transcendentalist
  • Benjamin Franklin - statesman, scientist
  • Buckminster Fuller - inventor
  • Elbridge Gerry - Vice President of the United States, signer of the Declaration of Independence, namesake of the practice of gerrymandering
  • Tom Glavine - MLB pitcher
  • Peter Gammons - MLB writer
  • Anthony Michael Hall - Brat Pack (movies) actor
  • John Hancock - statesman, 1st Governor of Massachusetts
  • Matt Hasselbeck - NFL quarterback
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne - writer
  • Nichole Hiltz - actress, The Riches, Shallow Hal
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes - writer
  • Winslow Homer - painter
  • Henry Way Kendall - physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Edward M. Kennedy - United States Senator
  • John F. Kennedy - 35th President of the United States
  • John F. Kerry - United States Senator, Democratic candidate in the 2004 election
  • Amos Lawrence - philanthropist
  • Matt LeBlanc - Friends actor
  • Jay Leno - comedian
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - poet
  • Robert Lowell - poet
  • Rocky Marciano - world heavyweight boxing champion
  • Cotton Mather - preacher, writer
  • Sharon Christa McAuliffe - astronaut
  • Merton Miller - economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
  • Samuel F. B. Morse - inventor of the telegraph
  • Joseph E. Murray - surgeon, performer of the first kidney transplant and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
  • Leonard Nimoy - actor
  • Tip O'Neill - longest serving Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
  • Douglass C. North - economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
  • Theodore Parker - transcendentalist
  • Timothy Pickering - first United States Postmaster General
  • The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Musicians
  • Pixies - rock band
  • Sylvia Plath - writer
  • Edgar Allan Poe - writer
  • Amy Poehler - actress and Saturday Night Live cast member
  • Paul Revere - revolutionary
  • William Forsyth Sharpe - economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
  • Louis Sullivan - architect
  • Donna Summer - singer
  • James Taylor - singer
  • Henry David Thoreau - writer
  • Uma Thurman - actress
  • Barbara Walters - newscaster, journalist
  • Mark Wahlberg - actor
  • Donnie Wahlberg - actor
  • Mike Wallace (journalist) - journalist of 60 Minutes fame
  • Daniel Webster - statesman
  • Eli Whitney - inventor of the cotton gin
  • Samuel Wilson - Uncle Sam
  • James McNeill Whistler - painter
  • Ted Williams - Boston Red Sox player
  • Conan O'Brien - comedian
  • Howie Long - NFL Hall of Famer, Fox NFL sports commentator
  • Rev. Dr. Soliny Védrine - founder of Haitian Ministries International

    Transportation

    See also: Boston transportation

    Highways

  • Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Interstate 93 within Boston)
  • Interstate 95: North to New Hampshire and Maine; south to Providence, Rhode Island and beyond. Largely concurrent with MA-128
  • U.S. Route 1
  • Interstate 93: North to New Hampshire; south to Canton
  • U.S. Route 3
  • Massachusetts Route 2: Northwest and west
  • The Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90): West to Framingham, Massachusetts and beyond
  • Massachusetts Route 9: Western suburbs
  • Massachusetts Route 24: South toward Newport, Rhode Island
  • Massachusetts Route 3: Southeast through South Shore to Cape Cod
  • Massachusetts Route 128 (I-95/I-93): Circumferential Highway (close to Boston)
  • Interstate 495: Circumferential (farther from Boston)
    • Route 128 is sometimes regarded as the unofficial boundary of the Greater Boston region, especially to the north and south. When the name Greater Boston is used in a more inclusive sense, I-495 is sometimes regarded as the boundary.

    Bridges and tunnels

  • Callahan Tunnel
  • Sumner Tunnel
  • Ted Williams Tunnel
  • Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Tunnel
  • Tobin Bridge
  • Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge

    Airports

  • Logan International Airport in Boston
  • Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire
  • T. F. Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island
  • Hanscom Field in Bedford
  • Norwood Memorial Airport
  • Worcester Regional Airport

    Rail transportation and Bus

  • Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA, The T)
  • MBTA Commuter Rail
  • Amtrak service to New York City and Washington, D.C.
  • Downeaster service to Maine from North Station The first railway line in the United States was in Quincy. See Neponset River.

    Ocean transportation

  • Port of Boston (Massport)
  • Cape Cod Canal

    Geography

  • Rivers
  • Hills Further Information

    Get more info on 'Greater Boston'.


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