Capital and largest city in Massachusetts, United States
About Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It serves as a cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. Boston has an area of 48.4 sq mi (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area had a population of 4.9 million in 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the eleventh-largest in the United States.
Etymology
Isaac Johnson—in one of his last official acts as leader of the Charlestown community before his death on September 30, 1630—named the new settlement across the river "Boston" after Johnson's hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire, from where he, his wife (namesake of the Arbella), and John Cotton (grandfather of Cotton Mather) emigrated. The name of the English town derives from its patron saint, St. Botolph, in whose church Cotton served as the rector until he and Johnson emigrated to New England. In early sources, Lincolnshire's Boston was known as "St. Botolph's town", which was later abbreviated as "Boston". Before this renaming, the settlement on the peninsula was known as "Shawmut" by William Blaxton and "Tremontaine" by the Puritan settlers he invited.
History
Before European colonization, the region surrounding present-day Boston was inhabited by the Massachusett people, who established small, seasonal communities in present-day Boston. In 1630, settlers led by John Winthrop arrived, and found Shawmut Peninsula nearly empty of Native people. Most had died of European diseases borne by earlier settlers and traders. Archaeological excavations have unearthed one of the oldest fishweirs in New England, located on Boylston Street, which Native people constructed as early as 7,000 years before European arrival in the Western Hemisphere. The first European to live in what would become Boston was a University of Cambridge-educated Anglican cleric named William Blaxton. …
Geography
Boston has an area of 89.63 sq mi (232.1 km2). Of this area, 48.4 sq mi (125.4 km2), or 54%, of it is land and 41.2 sq mi (106.7 km2), or 46%, of it is water. The city's elevation, as measured at Logan International Airport, is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level. The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 ft (100 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level. The city is adjacent to Boston Harbor, an arm of Massachusetts Bay, and by extension, the Atlantic Ocean. Boston is surrounded by the Greater Boston metropolitan region. …
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