page_title: Geography of Massachusetts
section_title: Settlement
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Massachusetts / Physical geography / Settlement
context_page_description: Massachusetts is the 7th smallest state in the United States with an area of 10,555 square miles. It is bordered to the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, to the west by New York, to the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island, and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts is the most populous New England state.
  Massachusetts is nicknamed "The Bay State" because of several large bays, which distinctly shape its coast: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay, to the east; Buzzards Bay, to the south; and several cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border sit adjacent to Mount Hope Bay. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula, Cape Cod. The islands Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie south of Cape Cod, across Nantucket Sound. Central Massachusetts features rolling, rocky hills, while Western Massachusetts encompasses a fertile valley and mountains surrounding the Connecticut River, as well as the Berkshire Mountains.
  Boston is Massachusetts' largest city, at the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, the mouth of the Charles River. Most Bay Staters live in the Boston area, which covers most of eastern Massachusetts.
context_section_description: 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 U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), all of Massachusetts falls within a metropolitan statistical area (MSA), except for the offshore islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. According to 2005 Census estimates, 62% of the population of Massachusetts lives within the Boston MSA.  Other Massachusetts metropolitan areas are the Worcester MSA (with 12% of the state's population), the Springfield MSA (11%), the Providence-Fall River-New Bedford MSA (9%), the Barnstable (Cape Cod) MSA (4%), and the Pittsfield MSA (2%).
  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.
caption: Massachusetts Population Density Map
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