Massachusetts (, /-zɪts/); Massachusett: Muhsachuweesut /məhswatʃəwiːsət/), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous own up in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders upon the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Maine to the east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. Massachusetts is the 6th smallest confess by land area but is the 15th most populous allow in and the 3rd most densely populated, after New Jersey and Rhode Island. The state’s capital and most populous city, as without difficulty as its cultural and financial center, is Boston. Massachusetts is also home to the urban core of Greater Boston, the largest metropolitan Place in New England and a region profoundly influential upon American history, academia, and the research economy. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing, and trade. Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing middle during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts’s economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade.

Massachusetts was a site of beforehand English colonization: the Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and in 1630 the Massachusetts Bay Colony, taking its name from the original Massachusett people, established settlements in Boston and Salem. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America’s most infamous cases of growth hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which, during the Industrial Revolution, catalyzed numerous important technological advances, including interchangeable parts. In 1786, Shays’ Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the “Cradle of Liberty” for the panic there that complex led to the American Revolution.

Massachusetts has played a powerful scientific, commercial, and cultural role in the chronicles of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a middle for the abolitionist, temperance, and transcendentalist movements. In the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legally receive same-sex marriage thus of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in 2004, and Boston is considered a hub of LGBT culture and LGBT activism in the United States. Prominent American embassy dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families.

Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of progressive learning in the United States, with the largest financial realization of any university. The college circles has educated eight Presidents of the United States even if Harvard Law School has educated a contemporaneous majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called “the most militant square mile upon the planet”, in insinuation to the tall concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and atmosphere of progress which have emerged in the vicinity of the square previously 2010. Both Harvard and MIT, also in Cambridge, are perennially ranked as either the most or in the course of the most severely regarded academic institutions in the world. The state’s public-school students place in the course of the summit tier in the world in academic performance. Massachusetts has been ranked as one of the summit states in the United States for citizens to conscious in, as with ease as one of the most expensive.

Massachusetts is one of the most educated, developed, and wealthiest states, ranking 1st in percentage of population 25 and greater than with a bachelor’s degree and 1st in percentage of population 25 and over with an liberal degree, 1st upon both the American Human Development Index and the conventional Human Development Index, 1st in per capita income and 2nd in median household income.