Every Lake
Massachusetts
The arm of Cape Cod, the Berkshire hills, and a coastline that made the country's first ports.
Massachusetts in relief
The land itself, cut in six steps of birch from the lowlands to the high ground — the cities starred, the summit and rise on the title block. No counties, no roads: just the shape of Massachusetts.
About Massachusetts
No state has a more recognizable outline: Cape Cod hooks out into the Atlantic like a flexed arm, with Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard below it, and the mainland runs west in a broad band to the New York line. The north border was surveyed by a crooked early line that still zigzags along New Hampshire; the south is straight. The Connecticut River splits the state in a wide valley, the Berkshires and Mount Greylock hold the western end, and the Quabbin Reservoir sits in the middle where four towns were flooded in the 1930s to give Boston water.
Massachusetts ratified on February 6, 1788, sixth of the thirteen, after a hard fight settled by the promise of a Bill of Rights. Boston has been the capital since 1630 and is still the hinge of the map: every highway aims at it. I-90 begins at the harbor and runs to Seattle, I-95 rings the city, and Route 6 runs the length of the Cape to Provincetown. Fourteen counties, several of them now historical lines only, and every one of them touching salt water or a river.
- Six layers of birch — the land in elevation steps
- The summit and total rise on the title block
- The major cities, starred and named
- Title block with the admission date and capital
- A double rule engraved around the edge
- Every county line and the state border
- The interstates with their shields — 10 on this board
- The major cities, starred and named
- Title block with the admission date and capital
- A mile ruler engraved around the frame
