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MA · 14 counties · capital Boston · Eastern Time · 8 counties without governments
Massachusetts county map
Massachusetts has 14 counties, but eight of them exist only as lines on the map: their governments were abolished between 1997 and 2000. Middlesex County is the most populous; Worcester County is the largest by area.
How Massachusetts’s counties are laid out
Massachusetts created its first counties in 1643 — Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk and the old Norfolk (later dissolved) — making them, with Virginia’s shires, the oldest in the United States. Plymouth, Bristol and Barnstable were set up in 1685 while Plymouth Colony was still separate, and Dukes and Nantucket in 1695. The western counties came later as settlement moved up the Connecticut River: Hampshire (1662), Worcester (1731), Berkshire (1761), then Franklin and Hampden split from Hampshire in 1811–1812. Norfolk in its present form dates from 1793.
In New England the town, not the county, is the basic unit of government, and Massachusetts took that to its conclusion in the late 1990s. After Middlesex County went bankrupt in 1997 the legislature abolished the governments of Middlesex, Franklin, Hampden, Worcester, Hampshire, Essex, Berkshire and Suffolk, transferring their courts, jails and registries of deeds to the state. Those eight counties now exist only as geographic and judicial districts. Six counties — Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk and Plymouth — still elect county commissioners and run some regional services, and Barnstable and Nantucket have adopted charters.
The “county seat” column below therefore names the traditional shire town where the courthouse and registry sit. Massachusetts is wholly on Eastern Time; it has no independent cities, though Nantucket is a single town and county with one combined government.
All 14 counties of Massachusetts
| County | County seat |
|---|---|
| Barnstable | Barnstable |
| Berkshire | Pittsfield |
| Bristol | Taunton |
| Dukes | Edgartown |
| Essex | Salem and Lawrence |
| Franklin | Greenfield |
| Hampden | Springfield |
| Hampshire | Northampton |
| Middlesex | Cambridge and Lowell |
| Nantucket | Nantucket |
| Norfolk | Dedham |
| Plymouth | Plymouth and Brockton |
| Suffolk | Boston |
| Worcester | Worcester |
Five county facts
- Largest by area: Worcester County, about 1,500 square miles of land in the centre of the state, stretching from the New Hampshire line to the Connecticut and Rhode Island lines. Its seat, Worcester, is the state’s second-largest city.
- Smallest by area: Nantucket County, an island of about 45 square miles thirty miles south of Cape Cod, and the only county in the state coextensive with a single town. Suffolk County (Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop) is the smallest on the mainland at roughly 60 square miles of land.
- Most populous: Middlesex County, with about 1.63 million people in 2020 — nearly a quarter of the state — taking in Cambridge, Lowell, Newton, Somerville and Framingham. It is the most populous county in New England. Worcester County is second at about 862,000 and Suffolk third at about 797,000.
- Least populous: Nantucket County, with about 14,000 year-round residents, followed by Dukes County (Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands) at about 21,000. Both swell to several times that size in summer.
- Oldest and newest: Essex, Middlesex and Suffolk (1643) are the oldest. Hampden County, seat Springfield, split from Hampshire in 1812, is the newest. No county government has been created since; eight have been abolished, the last being Berkshire and Suffolk in 2000.
Reading the map
Press Streets and zoom in to see county lines. Cape Cod is Barnstable County entire, and the two island counties, Dukes and Nantucket, lie off its southern shore. The Connecticut River runs south through Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties, past Greenfield, Northampton and Springfield. Berkshire County is the whole western strip against New York, holding the Berkshire Hills and Mount Greylock (3,489 feet), the state’s highest point. Essex County is the North Shore from Boston to New Hampshire, with Salem, Gloucester and Lawrence; Norfolk and Plymouth counties are the South Shore. The straight southern border with Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the straight northern border with Vermont, were surveyed lines; the New Hampshire border follows a line three miles north of the Merrimack River.
Related maps
- Massachusetts map — cities, borders and geography.
- Blank Massachusetts map and printable Massachusetts map.
- Boston, the state capital and largest city, seat of Suffolk County.
- Neighbouring county maps: New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island.
- New England · the Northeast · Eastern Time Zone.
- Geography: Appalachian Mountains, US coastlines, state high points.
- All US county maps.