Massachusetts is a state in New England, located in the northeastern United States, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
STATE NAME
The Massachusetts Bay Colony, which later became the state of Massachusetts, got its name from the Massachusetts, a tribe of Indians who lived in the territory of the future state. The word “Massachusett” is translated as “by the big hill” or “people living by the big hill”. Obviously, we are talking about the Big Blue Hill, located near modern Boston. The official name of the state is the “Commonwealth of Massachusetts”, often referred to simply as “The Commonwealth”.
Geography
The state of Massachusetts is located in the Northeastern United States, in New England. The area of the state of Massachusetts is 27,336 km2 (44th place among the US states). Massachusetts is bordered to the north by the states of New Hampshire and Vermont, to the west by the state of New York, and to the south by the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. In the east, the coast of Massachusetts is washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, in the west the Appalachians rise.
Massachusetts is called the “Bay State” because its coastline is formed by several large bays (Massachusetts, Cape Cod and Buzzards) and many small bays. In the east of the state, the Cape Cod Peninsula (“Cape Cod”) stretches out into the ocean, famous for its sandy beaches. To the south of the peninsula there are two large islands (Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket) and several small ones. To the west of Massachusetts, the relief gradually rises. The border of the lowlands of the coast separating them from the hills of Berkshire (up to 866 meters high) is the valley of the Connecticut River, known in Massachusetts as the “Valley of the Pioneers”. Further west, beyond the Berkshire Hills and the Husatonic Valley, lies the Taconic Mountain Range, part of the Appalachian mountain range. Here is the highest point in Massachusetts – Mount Greylock (1064 meters).
HYDROGRAPHY
The largest river flowing through Massachusetts is the Connecticut. The Connecticut River, which is the largest river in New England, flows south from the Connecticut Lakes in northern New Hampshire through western Massachusetts and on through Connecticut. But the longest river that flows entirely within Massachusetts is the Charles River. The Charles River, which is 129 km long, originates in Echo Lake near the city of Hopkinton in central Massachusetts and flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Boston Harbor. With 22 communities along the banks of the Charles River, it is the most densely populated river basin in New England. On the banks of the Charles River are located including the famous higher educational institutions of Massachusetts – Harvard University, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
CLIMATE
Massachusetts has a humid continental climate, with warm summers and cold, snowy winters. Precipitation falls fairly evenly throughout the year. The average temperature for Massachusetts is 27°C in summer and -8°C in winter. The record high temperature recorded in the capital of the state, the city of Boston, is 40 ° C, the record low is -28 ° C. In general, the climate is milder on the coast, due to the proximity of the ocean, temperature drops are much less. The “Gulf State” is quite often exposed to strikes of the elements – in winter, a gale sometimes blows from the northeast, in summer and autumn tropical cyclones and hurricanes come.
ECONOMY
The annual per capita income in the state of Massachusetts exceeds fifty thousand dollars, the “State of the Bays” ranks third among the US states in this indicator. The backbone of the Massachusetts economy are financial institutions; high-tech, knowledge-intensive industries; development of information technologies; health care and higher education.
The largest business centers of the state are the capital of Massachusetts – Boston, the cities of Cambridge and Springfield. In Massachusetts there are thirteen companies included in the list of the five hundred largest in the US according to Fortune magazine. The business center of Cambridge is the area of Kendall Square, not far from the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI). In the nineteenth century, industrial enterprises were located here, and today there are many companies working on information and biological technologies.
TOURISM
Despite the fact that the state of Massachusetts is very densely populated, its territory still has preserved corners of the most beautiful nature. The most popular among tourists are the Berkshire Hills and the coast of the Cape Cod Peninsula.
The Berkshires are a chain of forested hills located in western Massachusetts. Here, in the city of Stockbridge, the Berkshire Botanical Gardens are located, and in Pittsfield – an arboretum.
There are 185 sites in Massachusetts that have the official status of “National Historic Landmarks”. Massachusetts is the second among the US states (after the state of New York) in the number of such unique places. In Cambridge there is a house-museum of the famous American poet Henry Longfellow, who lived here for almost fifty years. By the way, earlier this house served as the headquarters of the future first US President George Washington. In Lowell, Massachusetts, there is a National Historical Park, representing to tourists the era of the industrial revolution in the United States and the development of textile production in Massachusetts. Brooklyn, Massachusetts, is the oldest in USA Car Collection – Lars Anderson Automobile Museum. The founder of the collection, Lars Anderson, acquired his first “horseless carriage” in 1899. In the following decades, he changed at least thirty-two cars, keeping the old ones. Later, the museum was donated to the city of Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, Massachusetts, there is a house-museum of the thirty-fifth US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was born in this house and lived here as a child.
Speaking about the sights of Massachusetts, one cannot fail to mention the many places of interest for tourists in the capital of the state – Boston and the oldest US university – Harvard.
