This data set contains the sea floor topographic contours, sun-illuminated topographic imagery, and backscatter intensity generated from a multibeam sonar survey of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary region off Boston, Massachusetts, an area of approximately 1100 square nautical miles. The Stellwagen Bank NMS Mapping Project is designed to provide detailed maps of the Stellwagen Bank region's environments and habitats and the first complete multibeam topographic and sea floor characterization maps of a significant region of the shallow EEZ. Data were collected on four cruises over a two year period from the fall of 1994 to the fall of 1996. The surveys were conducted aboard the Candian Hydrographic Service vessel Frederick G. Creed, a SWATH (Small Waterplane Twin Hull) ship that surveys at speeds of 16 knots. The multibeam data were collected utilizing a Simrad Subsea EM 1000 Multibeam Echo Sounder (95 kHz) that is permanently installed in the hull of the Creed.

This map service contains boundaries for the following types of public school districts:Local School - administered by a city or town school committee.Regional Academic - administered by a regional school committee.Regional Vocational Technical - administered by a regional vocational school committee.Independent Vocational and County Agricultural - administered by a board of trustees.Independent Public, including Commonwealth Charter Schools and Horace Mann Charter SchoolsDistrict information as of December 2, 2014, was obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE).For full metadata see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-public-school-districtsMap service also available.

This map service contains boundaries for the following types of public school districts:Local School - administered by a city or town school committee.Regional Academic - administered by a regional school committee.Regional Vocational Technical - administered by a regional vocational school committee.Independent Vocational and County Agricultural - administered by a board of trustees.Independent Public, including Commonwealth Charter Schools and Horace Mann Charter Schools District information as of December 2, 2014, was obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE).For full metadata see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-public-school-districtsFeature service also available.

March 2024

This layer is sourced from maps.coast.noaa.gov.

This map service presents spatial information developed as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management’s Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper. The purpose of the online mapping tool is to provide coastal managers, planners, and stakeholders a preliminary look at exposures to coastal flooding hazards. The Mapper is a screening-level tool that uses nationally consistent data sets and analyses. Data and maps provided can be used at several scales to help communities initiate resilience planning efforts. Currently the extent of the Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper covers U.S. coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. NOAA provides the information “as-is” and shall incur no responsibility or liability as to the completeness or accuracy of this information. NOAA assumes no responsibility arising from the use of this information. For additional information, please contact the NOAA Office for Coastal Management (coastal.info@noaa.gov).

© NOAA Office for Coastal Management

This map includes shoreline change data for the state of Massachusetts hosted by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management.The active data layer in this map is Massachusetts Shoreline Change Transect (1970-2014) with short-term shoreline change rates. To view long-term rates, open map in Map Viewer to turn on layer.The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management launched the Shoreline Change Project in 1989 to identify erosion-prone areas of the coast. The shoreline position and change rate are used to inform management decisions regarding the erosion of coastal resources. In 2001, a shoreline from 1994 was added to calculate both long- and short-term shoreline change rates along ocean-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast. In 2013, two oceanfront shorelines for Massachusetts were added using 2008-9 color aerial orthoimagery and 2007 topographic lidar datasets obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Ocean Service, Coastal Services Center. In 2018 two new mean high water (MHW) shorelines for Massachusetts were extracted from lidar collected between 2010 and 2014 (described below). 2018 addition shoreline 1The North Shore and South Coast uses 2010 lidar data collected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise. The South Shore and Outer Cape uses 2011 lidar data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Geospatial Program Office. Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard uses 2012 lidar data collected by the USACE (post Sandy)from a 2012 USACE Post Sandy Topographic lidar survey. 2018 addition shoreline 2The North Shore, Boston, South Shore, Cape Cod Bay, Outer Cape, South Cape, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the South Coast (around Buzzards Bay to the Rhode Island Border) is from 2013-14 lidar data collected by the (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program. This 2018 update of the rate of shoreline change in Massachusetts includes two types of rates. Some of the rates include a proxy-datum bias correction, this is indicated in the filename with “PDB”. The rates that do not account for this correction have “NB” in their file names. The proxy-datum bias is applied because in some areas a proxy shoreline (like a High Water Line shoreline) has a bias when compared to a datum shoreline (like a Mean High Water shoreline). In areas where it exists, this bias should be accounted for when calculating rates using a mix of proxy and datum shorelines. This issue is explained further in Ruggiero and List (2009) and in the process steps of the metadata associated with the rates. This release includes both long-term (~150 years) and short term (~30 years) rates. Files associated with the long-term rates have “LT” in their names, files associated with short-term rates have “ST” in their names.

April 2022

This map service contains both polygon and linear features for the boundaries of the Massachusetts State Senate districts, which were signed into law on November 4, 2021, with Chapter 82 of the Acts of 2021. These boundaries began to be used with the fall 2022 elections and are based on demographic data from the 2020 U.S. Census.Member names with the results of the November 2022 election were entered in January 2023 and updated in February 2024.Member names from the results of the November 2024 election were populated in January 2025.See full metadataMap service also available.

Boundaries of the eight Governor's Council districts for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as signed into law on November 22, 2021, with Chapter 92 of the Acts of 2021. These boundaries began to be used with the fall 2022 elections and are based on demographic data from the 2020 U.S. Census.Member names based on the results of the November 2022 election were populated in January 2023.See full metadataMap service also available.

This map service contains both polygon and linear features for the boundaries of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives districts, which were signed into law on November 4, 2021, with Chapter 83 of the Acts of 2021. These boundaries began to be used with the fall 2022 elections and are based on demographic data from the 2020 U.S. Census.Member names from the results of the November 2022 election were populated in January 2023 and updated in February 2024. An update to the attributes due to a special election in the 6th Worcester District was added in June 2024.Member names from the results of the November 2024 election were populated in January 2025.See full metadataFeature service also available.

Background and Data Limitations The Massachusetts 1830 map series represents a unique data source that depicts land cover and cultural features during the historical period of widespread land clearing for agricultural. To our knowledge, Massachusetts is the only state in the US where detailed land cover information was comprehensively mapped at such an early date. As a result, these maps provide unusual insight into land cover and cultural patterns in 19th century New England. However, as with any historical data, the limitations and appropriate uses of these data must be recognized: (1) These maps were originally developed by many different surveyors across the state, with varying levels of effort and accuracy. (2) It is apparent that original mapping did not follow consistent surveying or drafting protocols; for instance, no consistent minimum mapping unit was identified or used by different surveyors; as a result, whereas some maps depict only large forest blocks, others also depict small wooded areas, suggesting that numerous smaller woodlands may have gone unmapped in many towns. Surveyors also were apparently not consistent in what they mapped as ‘woodlands’: comparison with independently collected tax valuation data from the same time period indicates substantial lack of consistency among towns in the relative amounts of ‘woodlands’, ‘unimproved’ lands, and ‘unimproveable’ lands that were mapped as ‘woodlands’ on the 1830 maps. In some instances, the lack of consistent mapping protocols resulted in substantially different patterns of forest cover being depicted on maps from adjoining towns that may in fact have had relatively similar forest patterns or in woodlands that ‘end’ at a town boundary. (3) The degree to which these maps represent approximations of ‘primary’ woodlands (i.e., areas that were never cleared for agriculture during the historical period, but were generally logged for wood products) varies considerably from town to town, depending on whether agricultural land clearing peaked prior to, during, or substantially after 1830. (4) Despite our efforts to accurately geo-reference and digitize these maps, a variety of additional sources of error were introduced in converting the mapped information to electronic data files (see detailed methods below). Thus, we urge considerable caution in interpreting these maps. Despite these limitations, the 1830 maps present an incredible wealth of information about land cover patterns and cultural features during the early 19th century, a period that continues to exert strong influence on the natural and cultural landscapes of the region.

    Acknowledgements
    Financial support for this project was provided by the BioMap Project of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, the National Science Foundation, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. This project is a contribution of the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Program.

Terms of UseData Limitations and DisclaimerThe user’s use of and/or reliance on the information contained in the Document shall be at the user’s own risk and expense. MassDEP disclaims any responsibility for any loss or harm that may result to the user of this data or to any other person due to the user’s use of the Document.This is an ongoing data development project. Attempts have been made to contact all PWS systems, but not all have responded with information on their service area. MassDEP will continue to collect and verify this information. Some PWS service areas included in this datalayer have not been verified by the PWS or the municipality involved, but since many of those areas are based on information published online by the municipality, the PWS, or in a publicly available report, they are included in the estimated PWS service area datalayer.Please note: All PWS service area delineations are estimates for broad planning purposes and should only be used as a guide. The data is not appropriate for site-specific or parcel-specific analysis. Not all properties within a PWS service area are necessarily served by the system, and some properties outside the mapped service areas could be served by the PWS – please contact the relevant PWS. Not all service areas have been confirmed by the systems.Please use the following citation to reference these data:MassDEP, Water Utility Resilience Program. 2025. Community and Non-Transient Non-Community Public Water System Service Area (PubV2025_3).IMPORTANT NOTICE: This MassDEP Estimated Water Service datalayer may not be complete, may contain errors, omissions, and other inaccuracies and the data are subject to change. This version is published through MassGIS. We want to learn about the data uses. If you use this dataset, please notify staff in the Water Utility Resilience Program (WURP@mass.gov).This GIS datalayer represents approximate service areas for Public Water Systems (PWS) in Massachusetts. In 2017, as part of its “Enhancing Resilience and Emergency Preparedness of Water Utilities through Improved Mapping” (Critical Infrastructure Mapping Project ), the MassDEP Water Utility Resilience Program (WURP) began to uniformly map drinking water service areas throughout Massachusetts using information collected from various sources. Along with confirming existing public water system (PWS) service area information, the project collected and verified estimated service area delineations for PWSs not previously delineated and will continue to update the information contained in the datalayers. As of the date of publication, WURP has delineated Community (COM) and Non-Transient Non-Community (NTNC) service areas. Transient non-community (TNCs) are not part of this mapping project.Layers and Tables:The MassDEP Estimated Public Water System Service Area data comprises two polygon feature classes and a supporting table. Some data fields are populated from the MassDEP Drinking Water Program’s Water Quality Testing System (WQTS) and Annual Statistical Reports (ASR).The Community Water Service Areas feature class (PWS_WATER_SERVICE_AREA_COMM_POLY) includes polygon features that represent the approximate service areas for PWS classified as Community systems.The NTNC Water Service Areas feature class (PWS_WATER_SERVICE_AREA_NTNC_POLY) includes polygon features that represent the approximate service areas for PWS classified as Non-Transient Non-Community systems.The Unlocated Sites List table (PWS_WATER_SERVICE_AREA_USL) contains a list of known, unmapped active Community and NTNC PWS services areas at the time of publication.ProductionData UniversePublic Water Systems in Massachusetts are permitted and regulated through the MassDEP Drinking Water Program. The WURP has mapped service areas for all active and inactive municipal and non-municipal Community PWSs in MassDEP’s Water Quality Testing Database (WQTS). Community PWS refers to a public water system that serves at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents.All active and inactive NTNC PWS were also mapped using information contained in WQTS. An NTNC or Non-transient Non-community Water System refers to a public water system that is not a community water system and that has at least 15 service connections or regularly serves at least 25 of the same persons or more approximately four or more hours per day, four or more days per week, more than six months or 180 days per year, such as a workplace providing water to its employees.These data may include declassified PWSs. Staff will work to rectify the status/water services to properties previously served by declassified PWSs and remove or incorporate these service areas as needed.Maps of service areas for these systems were collected from various online and MassDEP sources to create service areas digitally in GIS. Every PWS is assigned a unique PWSID by MassDEP that incorporates the municipal ID of the municipality it serves (or the largest municipality it serves if it serves multiple municipalities). Some municipalities contain more than one PWS, but each PWS has a unique PWSID. The Estimated PWS Service Area datalayer, therefore, contains polygons with a unique PWSID for each PWS service area.A service area for a community PWS may serve all of one municipality (e.g. Watertown Water Department), multiple municipalities (e.g. Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works), all or portions of two or more municipalities (e.g. Provincetown Water Dept which serves all of Provincetown and a portion of Truro), or a portion of a municipality (e.g. Hyannis Water System, which is one of four PWSs in the town of Barnstable).Some service areas have not been mapped but their general location is represented by a small circle which serves as a placeholder. The location of these circles are estimates based on the general location of the source wells or the general estimated location of the service area - these do not represent the actual service area.Service areas were mapped initially from 2017 to 2022 and reflect varying years for which service is implemented for that service area boundary. WURP maintains the dataset quarterly with annual data updates; however, the dataset may not include all current active PWSs. A list of unmapped PWS systems is included in the USL table PWS_WATER_SERVICE_AREA_USL available for download with the dataset. Some PWSs that are not mapped may have come online after this iteration of the mapping project; these will be reconciled and mapped during the next phase of the WURP project. PWS IDs that represent regional or joint boards with (e.g. Tri Town Water Board, Randolph/Holbrook Water Board, Upper Cape Regional Water Cooperative) will not be mapped because their individual municipal service areas are included in this datalayer.PWSs that do not have corresponding sources, may be part of consecutive systems, may have been incorporated into another PWSs, reclassified as a different type of PWS, or otherwise taken offline. PWSs that have been incorporated, reclassified, or taken offline will be reconciled during the next data update.Methodologies and Data SourcesSeveral methodologies were used to create service area boundaries using various sources, including data received from the systems in response to requests for information from the MassDEP WURP project, information on file at MassDEP, and service area maps found online at municipal and PWS websites. When provided with water line data rather than generalized areas, 300-foot buffers were created around the water lines to denote service areas and then edited to incorporate generalizations. Some municipalities submitted parcel data or address information to be used in delineating service areas.Verification ProcessSmall-scale PDF file maps with roads and other infrastructure were sent to every PWS for corrections or verifications. For small systems, such as a condominium complex or residential school, the relevant parcels were often used as the basis for the delineated service area. In towns where 97% or more of their population is served by the PWS and no other service area delineation was available, the town boundary was used as the service area boundary. Some towns responded to the request for information or verification of service areas by stating that the town boundary should be used since all or nearly all of the municipality is served by the PWS.Sources of information for estimated drinking water service areasThe following information was used to develop estimated drinking water service areas:EOEEA Water Assets Project (2005) water lines (these were buffered to create service areas)Horsely Witten Report 2008Municipal Master Plans, Open Space Plans, Facilities Plans, Water Supply System Webpages, reports and online interactive mapsGIS data received from PWSDetailed infrastructure mapping completed through the MassDEP WURP Critical Infrastructure InitiativeIn the absence of other service area information, for municipalities served by a town-wide water system serving at least 97% of the population, the municipality’s boundary was used. Determinations of which municipalities are 97% or more served by the PWS were made based on the Percent Water Service Map created in 2018 by MassDEP based on various sources of information including but not limited to:The Winter population served submitted by the PWS in the ASR submittalThe number of services from WQTS as a percent of developed parcelsTaken directly from a Master Plan, Water Department Website, Open Space Plan, etc. found onlineCalculated using information from the town on the population servedMassDEP staff estimateHorsely Witten Report 2008Calculation based on Water System Areas Mapped through MassDEP WURP Critical Infrastructure Initiative, 2017-2022Information found in publicly available PWS planning documents submitted to MassDEP or as part of infrastructure planningMaintenanceThe

The MassDEP Regions layer represents boundaries used by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for planning and administrative purposes.See full metadataMap service also available.

The 2015 cartographic boundary shapefiles are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. The records in this file allow users to map the parts of Urban Areas that overlap a particular county. After each decennial census, the Census Bureau delineates urban areas that represent densely developed territory, encompassing residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban land uses. In general, this territory consists of areas of high population density and urban land use resulting in a representation of the "urban footprint." There are two types of urban areas: urbanized areas (UAs) that contain 50,000 or more people and urban clusters (UCs) that contain at least 2,500 people, but fewer than 50,000 people (except in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam which each contain urban clusters with populations greater than 50,000). Each urban area is identified by a 5-character numeric census code that may contain leading zeroes. The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and for the unorganized area, census areas. The latter are delineated cooperatively for statistical purposes by the State of Alaska and the Census Bureau. In four states (Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia), there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data presentation. The District of Columbia and Guam have no primary divisions, and each area is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data presentation. The Census Bureau treats the following entities as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation: Municipios in Puerto Rico, Districts and Islands in American Samoa, Municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The entire area of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas is covered by counties or equivalent entities. The boundaries for counties and equivalent entities are as of January 1, 2010.

Effective January 2023.More information: Visit the Geographic Information System (GIS) webpage for access to additional City maps.Informing Worcester is the City of Worcester's open data portal where interested parties can obtain public information at no cost.

Effective January 2023.More information: Visit the Geographic Information System (GIS) webpage for access to additional City maps.Informing Worcester is the City of Worcester's open data portal where interested parties can obtain public information at no cost.

This feature service stores telephone area codes for each municipality and reflects the addition of four "overlay" codes in Massachusetts which took effect on April 2, 2001. For more information on the Commonwealth's area codes, see Verizon's Area Codes Lookup Web page. Also see the Secretary of State's Area Code Regions map.Feature service also available.

A regression model that estimates monthly temperature and precipitation as a function of latitude, longitude, and elevation for the New England area was used to estimate annual growing degree days and precipitation for the state of Massachusetts. For details of the regression model please see the published paper (Ollinger, S.V., Aber, J.D., Federer, C.A., Lovett, G.M., Ellis, J.M., 1995. Modeling Physical and Chemical Climate of the Northeastern United States for a Geographic Information System. US Dept of Agriculture, Forest Service, Radnor, PA, USA).

This polygon data layer contains the six Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Highway Districts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The districts supervise all construction within its jurisdiction; performs on-site engineering; implements maintenance and preventative maintenance programs; generates proposals for maintenance and construction work; and provides engineering support to cities and towns.ProductionThe bounds of the MassDOT Highway Districts were digitized from the MassGIS survey-level town boundaries. In addition to the polygon layer, there is an arc layer following the same line work as the polygon included in the downloadable shape file.MetadataStatusThis data is current as of September 2013.

This datalayer represents the boundaries of the 13 regional planning agencies (RPAs) in Massachusetts. Each RPA serves as a forum for state and local officials to address issues of regional importance, including the development of comprehensive plans and recommendations in areas of population and employment, transportation, economic development, regional growth and the environment.More details...Map service also available.