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 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.

March 2024

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.

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.

April 2022

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

The 2022 cartographic boundary KMLs 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 cartographic boundary files include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The generalized boundaries of most incorporated places in this file are based on those as of January 1, 2022, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The generalized boundaries of all CDPs are based on those delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.

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).

The Digital Geologic Map of Cape Cod National Seashore and Vicinity, Massachusetts is composed of GIS data layers complete with ArcMap 9.3 layer (.LYR) files, two ancillary GIS tables, a Map PDF document with ancillary map text, figures and tables, a FGDC metadata record and a 9.3 ArcMap (.MXD) Document that displays the digital map in 9.3 ArcGIS. The data were completed as a component of the Geologic Resources Inventory (GRI) program, a National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) funded program that is administered by the NPS Geologic Resources Division (GRD). Source geologic maps and data used to complete this GRI digital dataset were provided by the following: U.S. Geological Survey. Detailed information concerning the sources used and their contribution the GRI product are listed in the Source Citation sections(s) of this metadata record (caco_metadata.txt; available at http://nrdata.nps.gov/caco/nrdata/geology/gis/caco_metadata.xml). All GIS and ancillary tables were produced as per the NPS GRI Geology-GIS Geodatabase Data Model v. 2.1. (available at: http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/inventory/geology/GeologyGISDataModel.cfm). The GIS data is available as a 9.3 personal geodatabase (caco_geology.mdb), and as shapefile (.SHP) and DBASEIV (.DBF) table files. The GIS data projection is NAD83, UTM Zone 19N. That data is within the area of interest of Cape Cod National Seashore.

The Massachusetts Coastal Zone data layer was compiled by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) to represent the Massachusetts coastal zone as defined in the October 2011 Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management Policy Guide ("Policy Guide"). Appendix 2 of the Policy Guide contains the most recent description of the official Massachusetts coastal zone and should be used in connection with the following two sources depicting maps of the boundary: (1) the CZM Coastal Atlas (Volume II of the 1977 Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Program and Draft Environmental Impact Statement) and (2) this data layer developed by CZM to depict the coastal zone in digital map format. This boundary was created per the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) of 1972 (Public Law 92-583, 16 U.S.C. 1451-1456). The boundary description is the specification of the major roads, rail lines, other visible rights-of-way, or coordinates marking the inland boundary of the coastal zone. The actual boundary is 100 feet inland of the landward side of the described line, with the exception of municipal boundaries, where the municipal boundary is the limit of the boundary description. This dataset represents the actual boundary.Please see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-coastal-zone-boundary for more details.\Map service also available.

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.

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.

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.

The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (MA CZM) launched the Shoreline Change Project in 1989 to identify erosion-prone areas of the coast by compiling a database of historical (1800's-1989) shoreline positions and shoreline change maps. Trends of shoreline position over long and short-term timescales provide information to landowners, managers, and potential buyers about possible future impacts to coastal resources and infrastructure. In 2001, a 1994 shoreline was added to calculate both long- and short-term shoreline change rates at 40-meter intervals along ocean-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast. In 2013 two oceanfront shorelines for Massachusetts were added using 2008-2009 color aerial orthoimagery and 2007 topographic lidar datasets obtained from NOAA's Ocean Service, Coastal Services Center. The 2013 update also included a 2000 lidar shoreline covering most of the open-ocean coast, as well as a 2001 shoreline for the South Shore coastal region. In 2018, two new mean high water (MHW) shorelines for the Massachusetts coast extracted from lidar data collected between 2010-2014 were added to the dataset. This 2021 data release contains a compilation of previously published historical shoreline positions spanning 170 years (1844 to 2014), intended to be used as an authoritative shoreline database for the state. This dataset is an update to the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management Shoreline Change Project.

CSO attributes and location information are from a variety of datasets for each state: Connecticut: Beginning with GIS data compiled by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (“CT DEEP”) and displayed on their CSO Right-to-Know site (https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Municipal-Wastewater/Combined-Sewer-Overflows-Right-to-Know), EPA filtered the data for the purposes of this map and made corrections based upon updated information available in EPA’s files. EPA’s map only displays municipalities with CSO outfalls, whereas CT DEEP’s map includes municipalities with CSO-related bypasses at their Wastewater Treatment Facilities (but no Combined Sewer Collection System CSO outfalls). EPA’s map only displays CSO outfalls – the point at which CSOs are discharged to the receiving water - whereas CT DEEP’s map includes CSO regulators (the structure through which wastewater and stormwater exits the conveyance pipe towards the Wastewater Treatment Facility). Maine: Service containing both facility and outfall locations permitted under the Maine Pollution Elimination System (MEPDES) and administered by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MEDEP). The data has been collected using multiple methods over 2 decades under the direction of the Maine DEP GIS Unit. All location data was quality checked by MEDEP MEPDES Inspectors and GIS Unit staff in 2018. Massachusetts: Attribute and location information from a combination of MassDEP CSOs(https://mass-eoeea.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=08c0019270254f0095a0806b155abcde) (metadata - https://mass-eoeea.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0262b339c2c74213bdaaa15adccc0e96) and NPDES permits(https://www.epa.gov/npdes-permits/massachusetts-final-individual-npdes-permits). New Hampshire: Active CSO outfalls collected from NH NPDES permits(https://www.epa.gov/npdes-permits/new-hampshire-final-individual-npdes-permits). EPA made corrections based upon updated information available in EPA’s files. Rhode Island: RI CSO Outfall Point Features. The outfalls managed by the Narragansett Bay Commission are downloadable from a GIS file through RIGIS (Rhode Island Geographic Information System https://www.rigis.org/datasets/nbc-sewer-overflows/explore?location=41.841121%2C-71.414224%2C13.57&showTable=true). Data was intended for use in utility facility engineering structure inventory. Last updated: 2019. Downloaded: 11/19/2021. Metadata (https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/2108bab269df47f988e59c18a556f37d/info/metadata/metadata.xml?format=default&output=html) Vermont: Attribute and location information from Vermont Open Geodata Poral (https://geodata.vermont.gov/datasets/VTANR::stormwater-infrastructure-point-features/explore?location=43.912839%2C-72.414150%2C9.29). Point, line, and polygon data was collected and compiled through field observations, municipal member knowledge, ortho-photo interpretation, digitization of georeferenced town plans and record drawings, and state stormwater permit plans. Accuracy of all data is for planning purposes and field verification is at the user’s discretion. VT Layer: Stormwater Infrastructure (Point Features) Metadata (https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/5c9875ee609c4586bd569dbacb2d92f1/info/metadata/metadata.xml?format=default&output=html).

This reference contains the imagery data used in the completion of the baseline vegetation inventory project for the NPS park unit. Orthophotos, raw imagery, and scanned aerial photos are common files held here. High-quality existing photography housed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS) was used as the base for the BOHA vegetation map. A true color orthophotomosaic was developed from a set of digital 1:5,000 scale medium resolution true color aerial images that are considered the new "basemap" for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by MassGIS and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) until 2005 DOQs became available in 2006 (MassGIS 2007). The photography for the entire commonwealth was captured in April 2005 when deciduous trees were mostly bare and the ground was generally free of snow. The image type is 4-band (RGBN) natural color (Red, Green, Blue) and Near infrared in 8 bits (values ranging 0-255) per band format.

In spring 2013 and 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey contracted for true-color imagery covering three urban areas in Massachusetts as defined by the USGS. Those areas are the metropolitan Boston area (and beyond), the greater Worcester area, and the greater Springfield area. Image type for all of the areas is 24 bit, 4-band (red, green, blue, and near-infrared RGBN) portions of the spectrum. Each band has pixel values ranging 0-255. Pixel resolution is 0.3 meters (30 centimeters), or approximately one foot.This digital orthoimagery can serve a variety of purposes, from general planning, to field reference for spatial analysis, to a tool for data development and revision of vector maps. It can also serve as a reference layer or basemap for myriad applications inside geographic information system (GIS) software.It was created to provide easily accessible geospatial data which is readily available to enhance the capability of Federal, State, and local emergency responders, as well as plan for homeland security efforts. These data also support The National Map.This image service was created using JPEG 2000 versions of the imagery that MassGIS converted from GeoTiffs and distributes online.For more information see the imagery's MassGIS metadata page.

This map is designed for use in ArcGIS Navigator and contains data for the U.S. Northeast Region supporting map display, geocoding and routing. The U.S. Northeast Region includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
The data is from ArcGIS StreetMap Premium North America 2025 Release 1 (based on TomTom 2024.12 vintage).

Note: Only the latest version of the map is available for download. See the 
Navigator map coverage 
and click on the map to access details (including file size, updated date, and data source).