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.

When using apps or web maps from MassGIS in ArcGIS Online, this map may be added as a basemap from the Basemap Gallery (based on the MassGIS Basemap with Parcels tile service).This general-reference map for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uses MassGIS data and includes a topographic base featuring water bodies, rivers and streams, open space areas and hillshade; many "detailed features" including roads, points of interest, place names, and more; and 2D building structure outlines. The three "layers" in this map are also cached separately and may be added to maps individually as needed:Building Structures (2D)Standardized Assessor ParcelsDetailed FeaturesTopographic Base>> See a map legend and read more about this map. Published on August 20, 2020.

The MassDEP Wetlands datalayer comprises two feature types, polygons and arcs (lines). The attribute codes in the polygon layer describe different types of wetland environments and the arc attributes describe line types based on adjacent polygon types or arcs defined as hydrologic connections.In this service the wetland areas are displayed using outlines and labeled with wetland code abbreviation. This symbology is useful for displaying the data atop aerial imagery.Please see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-massdep-wetlands-2005 for more details.

The Massachusetts House Legislative Districts (2012) datalayer reflects the state House of Representatives district boundaries as defined by Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 57: Section 4. These 160 districts were those used in the elections from 2012 and prior to 2022, when they were superseded by the 2021 House Districts.Staff at the Massachusetts House of Representatives developed this layer with its contractor, Caliper Corp. (Newton, MA), using Maptitude for Redistricting software. MassGIS appended the 1:100,000 coastline and state outline and added the attribute fields. Election results are obtained from the Secretary of State.

Boston MA city boundary including water features.

This is a polygon GIS data layer showing the location and extent of various sidescan, multibeam and swath bathymetry surveys conducted by the USGS, Coastal and Marine Geology Program. Outlines of individual mosaic areas were combined to create one comprehensive layer that could be used to illustrate areas surveyed by USGS/CMGP seafloor mapping programs.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (MA CZM), is producing detailed geologic maps of the coastal sea floor. Imagery, originally collected by NOAA for charting purposes, provides a fundamental framework for research and management activities along this part of the Massachusetts coastline, shows the composition and terrain of the seabed, and provides information on sediment transport and benthic habitat. Interpretive data layers were derived from the combined single-beam and multibeam echo-sounder data and sidescan-sonar data collected in the vicinity of Edgartown Harbor, Massachusetts. During August 2008 seismic-reflection profiles (Boomer and Chirp) were acquired, and during September 2008 bottom photographs and surficial sediment data were acquired as part of two ground-truth reconnaissance surveys.

The map is designed to be used as a basemap by marine GIS professionals and as a reference map by anyone interested in ocean data. The basemap focuses on bathymetry. It also includes inland waters and roads, overlaid on land cover and shaded relief imagery.

This dataset consists of 2-dimensional outlines of all buildings and structures within the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts. This information was originally compiled from 1998 and 2004 orthoimagery sources. Updated features have been derived from roof outlines collected by MassGIS using 2011 orthoimagery and LiDAR and updated with 2013 aerial imagery, scanned plans from the Town of Dedham Building Department, and a planimetric collection from the City of Boston. View Full Metadata