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Greater Boston's Premier Cosmetic Laser & Liposuction Center finesselaser.com | My Gym of Greater Boston Privacy Policy mygymboston.com |
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.
[edit] Definitions [edit] Metropolitan Area Planning CouncilThe 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 district 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. [edit] New England City and Town AreaThe 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).
[edit] Metropolitan statistical areaAn 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 approximately 4.4 million and is the tenth-largest in the United States. The components of the metropolitan area with their estimated 2005 populations are listed below.
[edit] Combined statistical areaA 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:
[edit] Principal cities and towns[edit] Boston metropolitan areaThe Census Bureau defines the following as principal cities in the Boston NECTA[5] using criteria developed for what the Office of Management and Budget calls a Core Based Statistical Area:[6] These, in decreasing order of population, are the ten largest cities in the Boston NECTA (2008):
[edit] Satellite areasThese larger cities fall within the CSA definition of Greater Boston only
[edit] Major companies
[edit] SportsMain article: Sports in Boston
Annual sporting events include:
[edit] Higher educationA 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. Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. See also: Boston, Massachusetts#Education , List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston, and List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts [edit] TransportationSee also: Boston transportation [edit] Highways
[edit] Bridges and tunnels
[edit] Airports
[edit] Rail and bus
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:
[edit] Ocean transportation[edit] Geography
[edit] References
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