Massachusetts - Cities, Towns, and Counties

Cities, Towns, and Counties

There are 50 cities and 301 towns in Massachusetts, grouped into 14 counties. The fourteen counties, moving roughly from west to east, are Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, Worcester, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket. Eleven communities which call themselves "towns" are, by law, cities since they have traded the town meeting form of government for a mayor-council or manager-council form.

Boston is the state capital and largest city in Massachusetts. The population of the city proper is 609,023, and Greater Boston, with a population of 4,522,858, is the 10th largest metropolitan area in the nation. Other cities with a population over 100,000 include Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, and Cambridge. Plymouth is the largest municipality in the state by land area.

Massachusetts, along with the five other New England states, features the local governmental structure known as the New England town. In this structure, incorporated towns—as opposed to townships or counties—hold many of the responsibilities and powers of local government. Some of the county governments were abolished by Massachusetts in 1997, and elect only a sheriff and registrar of deed who are part of the state government. Others have been reorganized, and a few still retain county councils.