June 2020

The political boundary coverage is a datalayer containing onshore and offshore boundaries for the 351 communities of Massachusetts.

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The political boundary coverage is a datalayer containing onshore and offshore boundaries for the 351 communities of Massachusetts. Note that no coastline appears in this data. The ArcSDE layers are named BOUNDARY_POLY and BOUNDARY_ARC.

Also see the List of Town Numbers and Names and Towns Index Map

Manuscript

Sources of this data are Chapter 196 Acts of 1881 boundaries drafted onto 1:80,000 NOAA charts and town boundaries from the USGS 1:25,000 topographic series published on stable based film.

Attributes

Fields in the polygon attribute table:

FIELD  NAME	TYPE	Contents
TOWN_ID	Int	MassGIS Town-ID Code (alphabetical, 1-351)
TOWN	Char	City or town name
FIPS_STCO	Int	Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) State/County Code
CCD_MCD	Char	US Census Town Code
FIPS_PLACE	Char	Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Town Code
POP1980	Int	US Census Town Population: 1980
POP1990	Int	US Census Town Population: 1990
POP2000	Int	US Census Town Population: 2000
POP2010	Int	US Census Town Population: 2010
POPCH80_90	Int	Population change, 1980-1990
POPCH90_00	Int	Population change, 1990-2000
POPCH00_10	Int	Population change, 2000-2010
FOURCOLOR	Int	Codes (1,2,3,4) allowing shading of all towns using 4 symbols (based on four-color theorem, where no adjacent polygons have same symbol)
TYPE	Char	C = City, T = Town, TC = Town with City form of governmentt, or (for AMESBURY and EASTHAMPTON) a City without wards or precincts. Source: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cispdf/City_Town_Map.pdf

The arc attribute table has a field, TYPE, that allows you to choose either onshore boundaries ('dry') with TYPE = 1, or offshore boundaries ('wet') with TYPE = 2.

Production

The onshore community boundaries were digitized by MassGIS from a set of stable based film prints of the 1:25,000 7.5' USGS quadrangles. Offshore boundaries were digitized by Mass. Dept. of Fish and Game's GIS program from 1:80,000 NOAA charts. The two were merged into one complete boundaries coverage. Along the eastern portion of the state offshore boundaries include those town boundaries that fall within rivers and other water bodies. For western Massachusetts all town boundaries are currently coded as onshore, 'dry' boundaries.

Note: The outer boundaries based on the Acts of 1881 do not necessarily coincide with the limits of the state territorial waters or state or town jurisdiction.

Maintenance

MassGIS maintains this datalayer.

In October 2002, the polygona attribute table was modified to include population figures (total and change) based on the 2000 U.S. Census. Also at this time the arcs were modified to correct a small section of the Florida-Savoy border.

In September 2009, TYPE was changed to 'TC' for Braintree, Palmer, Randolph and Winthrop.

In February 2014, TYPE was changed to 'TC' for BRIDGEWATER, based on latest data from the Secretary of State's office. Also, the POP2010 and POPCH00_10 fields were added and the fields FIPS_MCD and FIPS_COUNTY were dropped.

In June 2020, changed TYPE to 'C' for Greenfield and 'TC' for North Attleborough.

Also see Community Boundaries (Towns) and the most spatially-accurate datalayer Community Boundaries (Towns) from Survey Points (both of which contain the coastline).

Last Updated 6/16/2020