Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston, the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England, and its surrounding areas. The most stringent definition of the region consists of most of the eastern third of mainland Massachusetts, excluding the Merrimack Valley and most of Southeastern Massachusetts, though most definitions include much of these areas and portions of southern New Hampshire.
Boston in July 2015
Cambridge and Boston with MIT and Kendall Square in the foreground and Boston's Financial District in the background
Downtown Providence, Rhode Island in 2008
St. Patrick's Day Parade in Scituate, Massachusetts, in Plymouth County, the municipality with the highest percentage identifying Irish ancestry in the United States, at 47.5% in 2010. Irish Americans constitute the largest ethnicity in Greater Boston.
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England, Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island.
Image: Boston skyline from Longfellow Bridge September 2017 panorama 2
Image: Portland Head Light (cropped)
Image: Presidential Range 51
Image: Burlington vermont skyline