Massachusetts city and town boundaries, drawn with yellow lines, and labeled with yellow municipal names, ideal for display atop aerial photography.Please see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-municipalities for full metadata.

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.

Thematic map of Massachusetts cities and towns 1999: education, poverty, and income. Thematic map of Massachusetts cities and towns by percent of the 25 and older population with a high school graduate degree or higher. Thematic map of the percent of families below the poverty level in 1999. Thematic map of 1999 median household income

To access parcel information:Enter an address or zoom in by using the +/- tools or your mouse scroll wheel. Parcels will draw when zoomed in.Click on a parcel to display a popup with information about that parcel.Click the "Basemap" button to display background aerial imagery.From the "Layers" button you can turn map features on and off.Complete Help (PDF)Parcel Legend:Full Map LegendAbout this ViewerThis viewer displays land property boundaries from assessor parcel maps across Massachusetts. Each parcel is linked to selected descriptive information from assessor databases. Data for all 351 cities and towns are the standardized "Level 3" tax parcels served by MassGIS. More details ...Read about and download parcel dataUpdatesV 1.1: Added 'Layers' tab. (2018)V 1.2: Reformatted popup to use HTML table for columns and made address larger. (Jan 2019)V 1.3: Added 'Download Parcel Data by City/Town' option to list of layers. This box is checked off by default but when activated a user can identify anywhere and download data for that entire city/town, except Boston. (March 14, 2019)V 1.4: Data for Boston is included in the "Level 3" standardized parcels layer. (August 10, 2020)V 1.4 MassGIS, EOTSS 2021

This map service displays the year in which cities and towns in Massachusetts were first settled by Europeans. The data were gathered by the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Sources include: 2010 Census Report; Community Profiles, Department of Housing and Community Development; Historic Atlas of Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Press 1991.Data source: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/cis/historical/incorporation-settlement.htmFeature service also available.

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.

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

This map service from MassGIS displays the 26 Massachusetts Gateway Cities, municipalities with:population greater than 35,000 and less than 250,000;median household income below the state average;and rate of educational attainment of a bachelor’s degree or above that is below the state average.Read more about Gateway CitiesFeature 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.

The CPA Towns datalayer reflects the Massachusetts municipalities that adopted the Community Preservation Act.For more information about the Community Preservation Act contact the Community Preservation Coalition.More info...Map service also available.

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 2015 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 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.

MassGIS' standardized ("Level 3") property tax parcel mapping data set was developed through a competitive procurement funded by MassGIS. Each community in the Commonwealth was bid on by one or more vendors and the unit of work awarded was a city or town. The specification for this work was Level 3 of the MassGIS Digital Parcel Standard. Standardization of assessor parcel mapping is complete for all 351 Massachusetts' cities and towns. MassGIS is now incorporating updates from municipalities into the database. This hosted feature layer is exported from MassGIS' internal database of the feature class GISDATA.L3_TAXPAR_POLY_ASSESS, which links L3_TAXPAR_POLY and L3_ASSESS. The export includes the expression: (POLY_TYPE IN ('FEE', 'TAX')) OR (POLY_TYPE IN ('ROW', 'PRIV_ROW', 'RAIL_ROW', 'WATER') AND PROP_ID IS NOT NULL) It contains several fields from GISDATA.L3_ASSESS and stacked polygons where multiple assessor records link to a parcel. It contains features that do not have an associated record in GISDATA.L3_ASSESS, except for rights of way and water bodies. ROWs and water bodies with a non-null PROP_ID are included. The data in this feature layer is used for the popups in the Massachusetts Interactive Property Map. See full data descriptionA hosted tile layer will draw very quickly at map scale of 1:18,056 (level 15) to 1:564 (level 20).

This layer is the most accurate representation of Massachusetts' municipal (city and town) boundaries; this representation is based on the legislatively approved record of municipal boundaries. Authoritative determination of municipal boundary locations can only be provided by a licensed land surveyor.

This political boundary 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 (now The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) - Highway Division) with changes as they are approved by the legislature.See complete metadata.

This is a seven-category land-cover map of Andover, Massachusetts. The seven categories are: bare soil, coniferous trees, decidous trees, grass, impervious surface, water, and wetlands.

            Note: Complete metadata is available within the downloaded zip file. This metadata can be viewed with
            ESRI ArcGIS software. These files can also be exported to FGDC and ISO metadata formats.

This is a seven-category land-cover map of Wenham, Massachusetts. The seven categories are: bare soil, coniferous trees, decidous trees, grass, impervious surface, water, and wetlands. Note: Complete metadata is available within the downloaded zip file. This metadata can be viewed with ESRI ArcGIS software, and can be exported to FGDC and ISO metadata formats.

This is a seven-category land-cover map of Danvers, Massachusetts. The seven categories are: bare soil, coniferous trees, decidous trees, grass, impervious surface, water, and wetlands. Note: Complete metadata is available within the downloaded zip file. This metadata can be viewed with ESRI ArcGIS software, and can be exported to FGDC and ISO metadata formats.

The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst), in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), began a series of studies in 2019 to develop a web-based statewide hydraulic modeling tool to provide preliminary culvert designs to support stream crossing replacement projects in Massachusetts. This Web Map Service (WMS) has been developed to query data from the hydraulic models at select stream crossing locations using the StreamStats web application for Massachusetts. The WMS contains stream crossing point locations with hydrology and hydraulic data tables and associated watershed polygons. These stream crossing locations were derived from the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative data center (NAACC Data Center). Preliminary culvert designs for three-sided box, conspan arch, and a pipe culvert have been modeled using the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) software with cross-sectional and channel geometry data derived from high-resolution light detection and ranging (lidar) Digital Elevation Models (DEM). The WMS layer provides the ability to generate reports in the StreamStats web application for Massachusetts at the stream crossing locations for site location information, preliminary culvert designs, flood flows, bankfull channel geometry, aquatic habitat and stream connectivity restoration potential, basin characteristics, and other select information.

This record is maintained in the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB). The NGMDB is a Congressionally mandated national archive of geoscience maps, reports, and stratigraphic information, developed according to standards defined by the cooperators, i.e., the USGS and the Association of American State Geologists (AASG). Included in this system is a comprehensive set of publication citations, stratigraphic nomenclature, downloadable content, unpublished source information, and guidance on standards development. The NGMDB contains information on more than 90,000 maps and related geoscience reports published from the early 1800s to the present day, by more than 630 agencies, universities, associations, and private companies. For more information, please see http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/.

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.The boundaries are included in Esri's World Topographic Map through participation in its Community Maps program.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 https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-municipalities