The political boundary datalayer is a polygon representation of town boundaries created from arcs developed from survey coordinates extracted from the 68-volume Harbor and Lands Commission Town Boundary Atlas for the 351 communities (cities and towns) in Massachusetts. The Atlas was published in the early 1900's and is maintained by the Survey Section of Massachusetts Highway Department. For communities with a coastal boundary, MassGIS has collaborated with Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the Department of Environmental Protection to complete a 1:12000 scale coastline. The boundary for the coastline was defined as being the upland side of tidal flats and rocky inter-tidal zones. Note that the 351 communities are the official municipal names, not including "villages" or other sections of towns.This datalayer was created for the purposes of providing an up-to-date polygon version of the town boundaries for the 351 cities and towns of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The legislative intent for some boundaries could not be mapped. Boundaries where that is true are identified in the attribute information. This layer contains multi-part polygons, one for each municipality. The coastline on this layer has been generalized for small-scale cartography and faster display in web map services.See the layer metadata for details.

This tile service is derived from a digital raster graphic of the historical 15-minute USGS topographic quadrangle maps of coastal towns in Massachusetts. These quadrangles were mosaicked together to create a single data layer of the coast of Massachusetts and a large portion of the southeastern area of the state.The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) obtained the map images from the Harvard Map Collection. The maps were produced in the late 1890s and early 20th century at a scale of 1:62,500 or 1:63,360 and are commonly known as 15-minute quadrangle maps because each map covers a four-sided area of 15 minutes of latitude and 15 minutes of longitude.

The symbology of the data in this hosted tile layer is optimized for display atop aerial (ortho) imagery. Tiles are available for levels 7 through 20.Map Features for imagery include:

Political Boundaries: Massachusetts cities and towns, counties and state border, MassGIS).Transportation: Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Roads (MassDOT, MassGIS); MBTA subway and Commuter Rail lines and stations (Central Transportation Planning Staff, MassGIS); Airports, Ferry Routes and Seaports (MassDOT); Airport Runways and Airfields (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)).Infrastructure and Facilities: Lighthouses and Lights (Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management); Licensed Child Care Programs (Department of Early Education and Care); Schools (Pre-K-High School) (Massachusetts Department of Education, MassGIS); Colleges and Universities (MassGIS); Acute Care Hospitals and Non-acute Care Hospitals (Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of Emergency Medical Services, CHIA); Libraries, Police Stations, Fire Stations, Town Halls, Places of Worship, Courthouses, Prisons, DCR Pools.This service is used in the MassGIS Image Basemap.

Compiled in this map are datasets from and hosted by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Mass GIS, and the Center for Coastal Studies that focus on public access areas including: public beaches and other recreational space, conservation lands, boat ramps and marinas. Note:Open space continually changes, as explained on the MassGIS webpage, therefore please consider the Protected and Open Space layers as underdevelopment. Additionally, open space parcels are general representations and not a legal record of ownership. The following types of land included in this layer may be privately or publicly owned. Public access categories refer to legal (not physical) levels of public access and includes some areas of limited public access ( by membership only).Definitions for Level of Protection In Perpetuity (P)- Legally protected in perpetuity and recorded as such in a deed or other official document. Land is considered protected in perpetuity if it is owned by the town’s conservation commission or, sometimes, by the water department; if a town has a conservation restriction on the property in perpetuity; if it is owned by one of the state’s conservation agencies (thereby covered by article 97); if it is owned by a non-profit land trust; or if the town received federal or state assistance for the purchase or improvement of the property. Private land is considered protected if it has a deed restriction in perpetuity, if an Agriculture Preservation Restriction has been placed on it, or a Conservation Restriction has been placed on it.Temporary (T) - Legally protected for less than perpetuity (e.g. short term conservation restriction), or temporarily protected through an existing functional use. For example, some water district lands are only temporarily protected while water resource protection is their primary use.These lands could be developed for other uses at the end of their temporary protection or when their functional use is no longer necessary. These lands will revert to unprotected status at a given date unless protection status is extended.Limited (L) - Protected by legal mechanisms other than those above, or protected through functional or traditional use.These lands might be protected by a requirement of a majority municipal vote for any change in status. This designation also includes lands that are likely to remain open space for other reasons (e.g. cemeteries and municipal golf courses).None (N) - Totally unprotected by any legal or functional means. This land is usually privately owned and could be sold without restriction at any time for another use (e.g. scout camps, private golf course, and private woodland).For more information about this open space layer please visit MassGIS Content

The four adjacent Outer Cape communities of Eastham, Truro, Provincetown, and Wellfleet have built an intermunicipal partnership to pursue a regional approach to shoreline management. This partnership promotes short- and long-term science-based decisions that will maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of community responses to the increased threat of coastal hazards. This map set is a product of that partnership, the Intermunicipal Shoreline Management Project, a project first initiated in 2019 with funding from CZM's Coastal Resilience Grant Program.This map set shows the locations of coastal engineering structures (CESs), parcels with the potential to build CESs and beach nourishment.Parcels with the potential to build CESs: The Wetlands Protection Act 310 CMR 10.30 states when a coastal bank is determined to be significant to storm damage prevention or flood control because it supplies sediment to coastal beaches, dunes or barrier beaches then no new bulkhead, revetment, seawall, groin or other coastal engineering structure is permitted. An exception applies when the coastal engineering structure is required to prevent storm damage to buildings constructed before the effective date of August 10, 1978. Identified parcels are those with buildings built before 1978 and without an existing coastal engineering structure fronting the entire parcel's shoreline length ( last updated 11/2022).Locations of beach nourishment: All beach nourishment records were provided by the towns of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham. The locations of beach nourishment are symbolized by nourishment frequency (last updated 12/2021).Locations of CESs: CZM's 2009 and 2013 Massachusetts Coastal Infrastructure Inventory and Assessment data with updates based on a 2020 field survey.

This political boundary layer is the most accurate representing the city and town boundaries in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This datalayer has been created from latitude and longitude coordinates found in the 68-volume Harbor and Lands Commission Town Boundary Atlas. This Atlas series, and updates since it was published, describes the legal boundary for each of the 351 municipalities in Massachusetts. These coordinates were recorded from surveys of the location of each boundary marker around the periphery of each community. Each survey was tied into higher order monumented survey control points. The Atlases also include detailed descriptions of each community's boundary and location maps for each of the original boundary marker locations. The original surveys were conducted in the 1890s. The Atlas series was published in the early 1900s and has since been updated by the Survey Section of the Massachusetts Highway Department with changes as they are approved by the legislature. MassGIS staff collaborated closely with staff from the Survey Section during the development of this data layer. MassGIS staff keyed the coordinates into a database; that data entry was double-checked by staff from the Survey Section. Staff from the Survey Section then converted the latitude/longitude coordinates to the NAD83 datum and also created a version of the coordinates in state plane coordinates with units of meters. MassGIS used the state plane coordinates to "generate" points in ArcGIS. Boundary arcs from the existing USGS-derived municipal boundary data layer were then snapped to the survey-derived points. The differences between the municipal boundary arcs digitized from those on the USGS quads and those created by snapping to the survey-derived coordinates are typically plus or minus 12 feet, although these differences are sometimes less and sometimes more. Some municipal boundary arcs (about 15% of the total) follow the edge of a road or rail right-of-way or a stream or river channel. In these cases, the new boundary arcs were "heads up" digitized based on features visible on the statewide 1:5,000 color orthos from imagery flown in 2001.

For communities with a coastal boundary, MassGIS collaborated with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the Department of Environmental Protection to complete a 1:12,000 scale coastline.

City/Town names' labels are included in this service.

(This service was published from a map document using the Web Mercator projection for the data frame.)

For full metadata please see http://www.mass.gov/itd/townsurvey.

The four adjacent Outer Cape communities of Eastham, Truro, Provincetown, and Wellfleet have built an intermunicipal partnership to pursue a regional approach to shoreline management. This partnership promotes short- and long-term science-based decisions that will maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of community responses to the increased threat of coastal hazards. This map set is a product of that partnership, the Intermunicipal Shoreline Management Project, a project first initiated in 2019 with funding from CZM's Coastal Resilience Grant Program.Maps showing the general location of littoral cells, the sediment transport system and ISM management cells along the eastern shoreline of Cape Cod Bay.Management Cells: The spatial base map upon which to implement a regional shoreline management framework for the ISM planning area. Recognizing that nearshore and shoreline characteristics drive coastal change, management cells are organized around the concept of littoral cells or natural coastal compartments that contain a complete cycle of sedimentation including sources, transport paths, and sinks. Management cells can be used to determine a shoreline project’s location within the littoral cell and to aid in the identification of key management considerations for a given project. Ignoring municipal boundaries should enhance each town’s ability to work with the natural processes of coastal change and help facilitate a uniform, science-based regional shoreline management approach. Littoral Cells / Sediment Transport System: Although represented as discrete points and lines, features are not intended to imply point specific locations. Rather the information provided is intended to visualize generally the areas of sediment sources and sinks, the locations of null points, and the directions of net sediment transport along the eastern shore of Cape Cod Bay.DefinitionsLittoral Cell: A coastal compartment that contains a complete cycle of sedimentation including sources, transport paths, and sinks. Net Longshore Sediment Transport (Q): Annual net flow of sediment along the coast expressed as the volume rate of wave-produced sediment transport. Null Point: A point along the shore that defines the updrift or down drift boundary of a littoral cell, (Q=0). Sediment Sink: An area where sediment is removed from a littoral cell (an area of deposition). Sediment Source: An area where sediment in added to a littoral cell (an area of erosion). For more information seeBerman, G.A., 2011, Longshore Sediment Transport, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Marine Extension Bulletin, Woods Hole Sea Grant & Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. 48 p.Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Barger, P., McFarland, S., 2018. Assessment of the Century-Scale Sediment Budget for the Eastham and Wellfleet Coasts of Cape Cod Bay. A Report Submitted to the Towns of Eastham and Wellfleet, Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 32p. Giese, G.S., M. Borrelli, S.T. Mague, T. Smith and P. Barger, 2014, Assessment of Multi- Decadal Coastal Change: Provincetown Harbor to Jeremy Point, Wellfleet. A Report Submitted to the Massachusetts Bays Program, .Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 23 p. Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Smith, T.L., Barger, P., Hughes, P., 2013. Evaluating century-scale coastal change: Provincetown/Truro line to Provincetown Harbor. No. 14- 1, Center for Coastal Studies. 11p.

Massachusetts cached tiled basemap with topographic base, detailed features, and property tax parcels. Parcels display at levels 17, 18 and 19. Created August 5, 2025.Detailed Features include:Political Boundaries: Massachusetts cities and towns, counties and state border (Community Boundaries (Towns) from Survey Points, MassGIS)Transportation: Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Roads (MassDOT, MassGIS); MBTA subway and Commuter Rail lines and stations (Central Transportation Planning Staff, MassGIS); Airports, Ferry Routes and Seaports (MassDOT); Airport Runways and Airfields (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA))Infrastructure and Facilities: Lighthouses and Lights (Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management); Licensed Child Care Programs (Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care); Schools (Pre-K - High School) (Massachusetts Department of Education, MassGIS); Colleges and Universities (MassGIS); Acute Care Hospitals (Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of Emergency Medical Services); Non-acute Care Hospitals, Police Stations, Fire Stations, Town Halls (MEMA), Libraries, Places of Worship, Prisons, and DCR Pools. This Topographic Base includes shaded relief, elevation contour lines with labels in feet, protected open space (parks, forests, preserves, etc.), hydrography (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, wetlands), ocean, surrounding states, developed land areas, and airfields and runways.

The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Coastal Public Access Sites data comprise a set of public access sites that represent beaches, boat ramps, coves, rocky shorelines, public landings, coastal parks, salt marshes, and other open land that has been classified as open to the public. Not all coastal access sites may be shown in this layer. The layer includes coastal sites owned by the state, cities and towns, federal agencies, and private and non-profit entities. The coastal public access sites are parcel based where available, based on the MassGIS Level 3 Assessor Parcel Data. They are symbolized by ownership of the parcel. There are currently over 1800 coastal public access sites displayed in this data layer. The purpose of this data layer is for use in the Massachusetts Coast Guide Online story map. Please visit the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management's website for more information about this product, as well as information regarding other coastal programs.The sites in Coast Guide Online were mapped using the Massachusetts Office of Geographic Information (MassGIS) Level 3 Assessors' Parcel Mapping data layer, which contains property boundaries from each community's assessor. Published documents and websites from government and nonprofit sources were used to confirm and update the information.Despite extensive quality control efforts, neither on-the-ground property boundaries nor individual ownership of all parcels has been independently verified. CZM makes no representations or warranties with respect to the definitiveness of the private or public ownership data presented in Coast Guide Online. All issues related to questions of ownership of coastal property should be investigated at the local Registry of Deeds.Please email Samantha Coccia-Schillo with any questions on this layer at Samantha.Coccia-Schillo@mass.gov.

The CT Municipalities layer consists of individual polygons representing each of the 169 municipalities that make up the state of Connecticut. This feature class is based on the Towns layer originally created by CTDEEP from USGS maps. The towns from the CTDEEP data were dissolved to create 169 records (one for each town). Fields were added and deleted to create a generic schema.

The CT Municipalities feature class was created in (municipality) alphabetical order. Fields were added to identify the municipality number and the CTDOT Municipality number, which differ from each other in some cases. In 1947 the town of Saybrook officially changed its name to Deep River. Other State agencies and municipalities changed their numbering systems to reflect this name change, however, most of what is now CTDOT kept their existing numbering system. This is why the CTDOT town number for Deep River is 122, the number formerly assigned to Saybrook.

The square miles associated with each town are for their interior land mass area. Coastal communities have boundaries that extend into Long Island Sound. These town boundary extensions into Long Island Sound are not included in the square miles field.

CTDOT has created and will maintain a cartographic rendering of the geometric shape of Municipal boundaries. Official Town and City designations as incorporated areas consisting of an authorized governing body are managed by CT's Office of Policy and Management (OPM).

CTDOT has undertaken a good faith effort to represent the boundaries cartographically in a fair and equitable fashion, from the best available data compiled from existing state, regional, and local resources including - existing historical cartographic renderings of the boundary locations, supplemental survey information, and map submissions. Corrections can be submitted to the CTDOT for incorporation and correction where applicable.

Attribution was assigned to designations managed by a variety of entities that strictly follow Municipal boundaries and additional designations will be added as requested by State, regional, and local partners.

This map highlights important characteristics of the nearshore zone related to erosion, deposition, sediment transport and shoreline change. Elevation data from the 1930-40s and from 2010-2017 were compared to document the direction and volume of sediment movement, to identify sources and sinks of sediment and to quantify the sediment budget for Cape Cod Bay (see referenced reports for more detailed information). Shown in this map are the general locations of littoral cells and the sediment transport system along the eastern shoreline of Cape Cod Bay. Although represented as discrete points and lines, features are not intended to imply point specific locations. Rather the information provided is indented to aid coastal managers in the visualization and interpretation of complex scientific results. The shoreline change layers included in this map describe long-term (approximately 150 years) and short-term (approximately 30 years) shoreline change. Shoreline transect data were obtained from the USGS Massachusetts Shoreline Change Project (see reference). Transect rates were used to show the relative magnitude of change along the shoreline. The length of a transect is a relative measure of change; a longer line indicates a greater rate of change compared to other locations along the shoreline. Negative values indicate erosion and positive values indicate accretion. DefinitionsLittoral Cell: A coastal compartment that contains a complete cycle of sedimentation including sources, transport paths, and sinks. Net Longshore Sediment Transport (Q): annual net flow of sediment along the coast expressed as the volume rate of wave-produced sediment transport. Null Point: A point along the shore that defines the updrift or downdrift boundary of a littoral cell, (Q=0). Sediment Sink: an area where sediment is removed from a littoral cell (an area of deposition). Sediment Source: an area where sediment in added to a littoral cell (an area of erosion). For more information seeBerman, G.A., 2011, Longshore Sediment Transport, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Marine Extension Bulletin, Woods Hole Sea Grant & Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. 48 p.Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Barger, P., McFarland, S., 2018. Assessment of the Century-Scale Sediment Budget for the Eastham and Wellfleet Coasts of Cape Cod Bay. A Report Submitted to the Towns of Eastham and Wellfleet, Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 32p. Giese, G.S., M. Borrelli, S.T. Mague, T. Smith and P. Barger, 2014, Assessment of Multi- Decadal Coastal Change: Provincetown Harbor to Jeremy Point, Wellfleet. A Report Submitted to the Massachusetts Bays Program, .Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 23 p. Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Smith, T.L., Barger, P., Hughes, P., 2013. Evaluating century-scale coastal change: Provincetown/Truro line to Provincetown Harbor. No. 14- 1, Center for Coastal Studies. 11p.Himmelstoss, E.A., Farris, A.S., Weber, K.M., and Henderson, R.E., 2019, Massachusetts shoreline change project, 2018 update–A GIS compilation of shoreline change rates calculated using Digital Shoreline Analysis System version 5.0, with supplementary intersects and baselines for Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey data release

Massachusetts counties from Survey Towns (with generalized coastline). Contains the 14 county polygons. Published as a feature service from MassGIS' ArcGIS Server platform. See full metadata

The four adjacent Outer Cape communities of Eastham, Truro, Provincetown, and Wellfleet have built an intermunicipal partnership to pursue a regional approach to shoreline management. This partnership promotes short- and long-term science-based decisions that will maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of community responses to the increased threat of coastal hazards. This map set is a product of that partnership, the Intermunicipal Shoreline Management Project, a project first initiated in 2019 with funding from CZM's Coastal Resilience Grant Program.Maps showing the general location of littoral cells, the sediment transport system and ISM management cells along the eastern shoreline of Cape Cod Bay.Management Cells: The spatial base map upon which to implement a regional shoreline management framework for the ISM planning area. Recognizing that nearshore and shoreline characteristics drive coastal change, management cells are organized around the concept of littoral cells or natural coastal compartments that contain a complete cycle of sedimentation including sources, transport paths, and sinks. Management cells can be used to determine a shoreline project’s location within the littoral cell and to aid in the identification of key management considerations for a given project. Ignoring municipal boundaries should enhance each town’s ability to work with the natural processes of coastal change and help facilitate a uniform, science-based regional shoreline management approach. Littoral Cells / Sediment Transport System: Although represented as discrete points and lines, features are not intended to imply point specific locations. Rather the information provided is intended to visualize generally the areas of sediment sources and sinks, the locations of null points, and the directions of net sediment transport along the eastern shore of Cape Cod Bay.DefinitionsLittoral Cell: A coastal compartment that contains a complete cycle of sedimentation including sources, transport paths, and sinks. Net Longshore Sediment Transport (Q): Annual net flow of sediment along the coast expressed as the volume rate of wave-produced sediment transport. Null Point: A point along the shore that defines the updrift or down drift boundary of a littoral cell, (Q=0). Sediment Sink: An area where sediment is removed from a littoral cell (an area of deposition). Sediment Source: An area where sediment in added to a littoral cell (an area of erosion). For more information seeBerman, G.A., 2011, Longshore Sediment Transport, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Marine Extension Bulletin, Woods Hole Sea Grant & Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. 48 p.Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Barger, P., McFarland, S., 2018. Assessment of the Century-Scale Sediment Budget for the Eastham and Wellfleet Coasts of Cape Cod Bay. A Report Submitted to the Towns of Eastham and Wellfleet, Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 32p. Giese, G.S., M. Borrelli, S.T. Mague, T. Smith and P. Barger, 2014, Assessment of Multi- Decadal Coastal Change: Provincetown Harbor to Jeremy Point, Wellfleet. A Report Submitted to the Massachusetts Bays Program, .Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA. 23 p. Giese, G.S., Borrelli, M., Mague, S.T., Smith, T.L., Barger, P., Hughes, P., 2013. Evaluating century-scale coastal change: Provincetown/Truro line to Provincetown Harbor. No. 14- 1, Center for Coastal Studies. 11p.

The geographic extent of the town of Easton, MA and surrounding cities and townsTown boundaries were copied from MassGIS Data - Community Boundaries (Towns) from Survey Points (last update November 2015). Edits were made to remove coast lines of internal waterways. The boundaries of for Taunton, Raynam and Bridgewater were copied from MassGIS - Community Boundaries (Towns) Without Coast (February 2014). Boundaries were edited to match those from Community Boundaries from Survey Points.