Boston

About

Boston ( BAW-stən, ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It serves as a cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. Boston has an area of 48.4 square miles (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area had a population of 5 million in 2025, making it the largest metropolis in New England and the eleventh-largest in the United States.

Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. During the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, including the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and the Siege of Boston (1775–1776).