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The eight subregions and their principal towns are: Inner Core (Boston), Minuteman ([[Massachusetts Route 2|Route 2]] corridor), [[MetroWest, Massachusetts|MetroWest]] (Framingham), [[North Shore (Massachusetts)|North Shore]] (Peabody), North Suburban (Woburn), [[South Shore (Massachusetts)|South Shore]] ([[Massachusetts Route 3|Route 3]] corridor), SouthWest (Franklin), and Three Rivers (Norwood).
The eight subregions and their principal towns are: Inner Core (Boston), Minuteman ([[Massachusetts Route 2|Route 2]] corridor), [[MetroWest, Massachusetts|MetroWest]] (Framingham), [[North Shore (Massachusetts)|North Shore]] (Peabody), North Suburban (Woburn), [[South Shore (Massachusetts)|South Shore]] ([[Massachusetts Route 3|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 (Massachusetts)|Merrimack Valley]] cities of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, much of [[Plymouth County, Massachusetts|Plymouth County]], and all of [[Bristol County, Massachusetts|Bristol County]]; these areas have their own regional planning bodies.
Notably excluded from the MAPC and its partner planning body, the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, are the [[Merrimack Valley (Massachusetts)|Merrimack Valley]] cities of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill, much of [[Plymouth County, Massachusetts|Plymouth County]], and all of [[Bristol County, Massachusetts|Bristol County]]; these areas have their own regional planning bodies.


===New England City and Town Area===
===New England City and Town Area===

Revision as of 09:15, 5 August 2009

Greater Boston
Population
4,411,835 (2,005 est.)

Greater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston. Due to ambiguity in usage, the size of the area referred to can be anywhere between that of the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of Boston to that of the city's combined statistical area (CSA) which includes the metro areas of Providence, Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts.

By contrast, Metro Boston is usually reserved to signify the "inner core" surrounding the City of Boston,[citation needed] while "Greater Boston" usually at least overlaps the North and South Shores, as well as MetroWest and the Merrimack Valley.

Greater Boston includes the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, home to over 4.4 million people, while the CSA is the nation's fifth largest and includes over 7.4 million people.[1] It is also the 51st most populous metropolitan area in the world.[2][unreliable source?]

Greater Boston has many sites and people significant to American history and culture, particularly the American Revolution, civil rights, literature, and politics, and is one of the nation's centers of education, finance, industry, and tourism, with the ninth-largest Gross metropolitan product in the country.

Definitions

Light Blue represents the area in Massachusetts known as Greater Boston, while Dark Blue represents the Metro-Boston area and Red represents Boston proper, the City of Boston.

Metropolitan Area Planning Council

The most restrictive definition of the Greater Boston area is the region administered by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).[3] 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 (3,680 km2),[3] of which 39% is forested and an additional 11% is water, wetland, or other open space.[4]

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 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.[5] 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.

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:

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.

These, in decreasing order, are the ten largest cities in the Boston NECTA (2006) [1]

Satellite areas

These larger cities fall within the CSA definition of Greater Boston only

Major companies

Sports

Main article: Sports in Boston
Club Sport League Stadium
Boston Bruins Ice hockey National Hockey League TD Banknorth Garden (Boston)
Boston Cannons Lacrosse Major League Lacrosse Harvard Stadium (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:

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. Additionally, Phillips Academy, one of the country's premier prep schools, is located in Andover, and boasts several famous alumni including former Associate Justice of the United States Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and former U.S. President George H. W. Bush.

See also: Boston, Massachusetts § Education; List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston; and List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts

Transportation

See also: Boston transportation

Highways

Bridges and tunnels

Airports

Rail and bus

The MBTA district, with Commuter Rail lines in purple

The first railway line in the United States was in Quincy. See Neponset River.

The following Regional Transit Authorities have bus service that connects with MBTA commuter rail stations:

Ocean transportation

Geography

References

  1. ^ "Annual Estimates of the Population of Combined Statistical Areas: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007" (CSV). 2007 Population Estimates. United States Census Bureau, Population Division. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-04-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ kalavinka (June 26, 2006). "The World's Largest Metropolitan Areas". Lists of Bests. Robot Co-op.
  3. ^ a b "About MAPC". Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
  4. ^ Boston Region MPO (April 12, 2007). "Journey to 2030: Transportation Plan of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization" (PDF). p. 2-1. Retrieved 2007-05-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ U.S. Census Bureau - Components of New England City and Town Areas

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