South Shore (Massachusetts) - Geography

Geography

By its most literal definition, the South Shore only includes cities and towns between Boston and Cape Cod that physically border the Atlantic Ocean, thereby limiting the South Shore to the following:

The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management limits its definition of the South Shore to the municipalities between Boston Harbor and Cape Cod which include Atlantic coastal and coastal watershed areas "from the three-mile (5 km) limit of the state territorial sea to 100 feet (30 m) beyond the first major land transportation route encountered (a road, highway, rail line, etc.)." This definition eliminates Quincy and Weymouth, which border Boston Harbor, but adds the towns of Hanover, Norwell and Pembroke.

In the official sense of the South Shore, however, some of these coastal communities are either members of the Boston-centered Inner Core Committee of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) or not part of the metropolitan area at all, while the South Shore Coalition of the MAPC comprises representatives from 13 coastal and inland communities and includes the following cities and towns:

Other inland towns and cities that are sometimes included in definitions of the South Shore include: