Geography of Massachusetts
Massachusetts is nicknamed "The Bay State" because of several large bays, which distinctly shape its coast:
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.
Overview
In Eastern Massachusetts, Boston is located at the innermost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River. The Charles River is longest river located entirely within Massachusetts, (although the Westfield River can be considered longer if one combines its upper and lower branches); however, the Connecticut River is the Commonwealth's—and New England's—longest, and most significant river.[2] Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 4.4 million) lives outside of the city proper. The City of Boston itself is densely urban. Generally, Eastern Massachusetts, including and surrounding Boston, is densely populated. Boston's suburbs stretch as far west as the City of Worcester in Central Massachusetts.
Central Massachusetts encompasses Worcester County, which is hilly and rocky. It features the urban city of
The
.Further west rises a range of rolling, purple mountains known as the Berkshires. Near the New York border, the Taconic and Hoosac Ranges cross into Massachusetts; however, in general, the area is known as The Berkshires. The region was populated by Native Americans until the 18th century when Scotch-Irish settlers arrived, after having found the fertile lowlands along the Connecticut River settled. On reaching the Berkshires, settlers found poor soil for farming, but discovered numerous fast-moving rivers for industry. Pittsfield and North Adams grew into small, albeit prosperous cities. A number of smaller mill towns exist along the Westfield and Housatonic Rivers, interspersed with wealthy vacation resort towns.
The
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
. Apart from a few alluvial floodplains, soils tend to be rocky, acidic, and not very fertile.Part of the state is uplands of resistant metamorphic rock that were scraped by
Topography
Elevation and relief are greatest in the western part of the state and increase somewhat from south to north. The
Between the Berkshires and the rest of the state lies the
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 (48 kilometers) of the coast, few hills exceed 300 feet (91 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
Climate
Massachusetts has a humid continental climate. Summers are warm, while winters are relatively cold, with average January temperatures below freezing throughout most of the state.
Generally, Massachusetts' hilly central interior (e.g. Worcester) and its western Berkshire Mountain region (e.g. Pittsfield) have colder winters than its coastal and Connecticut River Valley regions. Stockbridge, in the Berkshires, has a January average temperature of 21.6 °F (−5.8 °C). In Eastern Massachusetts, Boston, on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, has an average January temperature of 29.0 °F (−1.7 °C). The island of Martha's Vineyard has the state's highest average temperature—31.8 °F (−0.1 °C), due to the warming effect of the Atlantic Ocean. Summer temperatures are highest in the state's urban centers, due to the heat island effect. Average July temperatures in Massachusetts' three most populous urban centers are: Boston (coastal) - 81.7 °F (27.6 °C); Worcester (central) - 79.2 °F (26.2 °C); and Springfield (Connecticut River Valley) - 85.0 °F (29.4 °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 Berkshires and lowest along the coast.
Precipitation is spread fairly evenly throughout the year in Massachusetts. Boston averages 43 inches (1,100 mm) of precipitation annually, with a maximum monthly average of 4.3 inches (110 mm) in November and a minimum monthly average of 2.9 inches (74 mm) in July. Springfield, in the Pioneer Valley, averages 45.8 inches (1,160 mm) of annual precipitation, with a 4.6 inches (120 mm) maximum monthly average in June and a 2.7 inches (69 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 regions of Massachusetts experience substantial snowfall in a typical winter; however, generally, coastal areas (e.g. Boston, Cape Cod,) and the Connecticut River Valley (e.g. Springfield) receive approximately 2/3 the amount of snowfall of central Massachusetts (e.g. Worcester) and the Berkshires (e.g. Pittsfield.) Total annual snowfalls average 43.3 inches (110 cm) in Boston; 43.2 inches (110 cm) in Springfield; and 69.1 inches (176 cm) in Worcester. The ground is often covered with snow for weeks at a time during 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. The hottest temperature recorded was 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.8 degrees Celsius).
Ecology
The primary biome of inland Massachusetts is temperate deciduous forest.[12] Although much of the state had been cleared for agriculture, leaving only traces of
A number of species are doing well, despite, and in some cases because of the increased urbanization of the commonwealth.
Massachusetts is located along the
Freshwater fish species in the commonwealth include
Environment
Most of Massachusetts is forested. Even suburban eastern Massachusetts is heavily wooded. Trees tend to grow 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,[30] 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.
Three
The forests (and wooded suburbs) are home to a variety of invertebrate and vertebrate animal species. The state has an abundance of
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 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.
Settlement
The Northeast megalopolis extends into Massachusetts. 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
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
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.
Watersheds
Major river systems in Massachusetts include:[32][33]
- Hudson River (mostly in New York State)
- Hoosic River
- Kinderhook River
- Bash Bish Brook
- Housatonic River
- Connecticut River
- Westfield River
- Deerfield River
- Millers River
- Chicopee River
- Farmington River (mostly in Connecticut)
- Thames River (Connecticut)
- Blackstone River
- Ten Mile River
- Taunton River
- Mystic River
- Charles River
- Neponset River
- Merrimack River
Short streams and rivers and underground flows drain the coastal areas and islands on the Atlantic Ocean and Narragansett Bay.
See also
- List of mountains in Massachusetts
- List of Massachusetts rivers
- Massachusetts#Geography
- Northern boundary of Massachusetts
References
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{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0933:TEOTWA]2.0.CO;2.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ "Massachusetts' 28 Watersheds". Archived from the original on 2022-02-17. Retrieved 2021-10-16.
- ^ Commonwealth of Massachusetts (December 2019). "Massachusetts Year 2016 Integrated List of Waters" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2021-10-16. p. 4
External links
- Geographic data related to Geography of Massachusetts at OpenStreetMap
- Massachusetts Geological Survey
- Maps of Massachusetts