Boston ( BAW-stən, ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It serves as a cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. Boston has an area of 48.4 square miles (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area had a population of 5 million in 2025, making it the largest metropolis in New England and the eleventh-largest in the United States.
Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. During the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, including the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and the Siege of Boston (1775–1776).
Following American independence from Great Britain, Boston played an important national role as a port, manufacturing hub, and education and culture center, and the city expanded significantly beyond the original peninsula by filling in land and annexing neighboring towns. Boston's many firsts include the nation's first public park (Boston Common, 1634), the first public school (Boston Latin School, 1635), and the first subway system (Tremont Street subway, 1897). By the 21st century, Boston emerged as a global leader in higher education and research, and has become one of the largest biotechnology hubs in the world. With an economy led by finance, professional and business services, information technology, and government, the city is a national leader in medicine, engineering, and business.
Isaac Johnson—in one of his last official acts as leader of the Charlestown community before his death on September 30, 1630—named the new settlement across the river "Boston" after Johnson's hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire, from where he, his wife (namesake of the Arbella), and John Cotton (grandfather of Cotton Mather) emigrated. The name of the English town derives from its patron saint, St. Botolph, in whose church Cotton served as the rector until he and Johnson emigrated to New England. In early sources, Lincolnshire's Boston was known as "St. Botolph's town", which was later abbreviated as "Boston". Before this renaming, the settlement on the peninsula was known as "Shawmut" by William Blaxton and "Tremontaine" by the Puritan settlers he invited.
Before European colonization, the region surrounding present-day Boston was inhabited by the Massachusett people, who established small, seasonal communities in present-day Boston. In 1630, settlers led by John Winthrop arrived, and found Shawmut Peninsula nearly empty of Native people. Most had died of European diseases borne by earlier settlers and traders. Archaeological excavations have unearthed one of the oldest fishweirs in New England, located on Boylston Street, which Native people constructed as early as 7,000 years before European arrival in the Western Hemisphere.
The first European to live in what would become Boston was a University of Cambridge-educated Anglican cleric named William Blaxton. He was most directly responsible for the foundation of Boston by Puritan colonists in 1630, after Blaxton invited one of their leaders, Isaac Johnson, to cross Back Bay from the failing colony of Charlestown and share the peninsula with him. In September 1630 Puritans made the crossing to present-day Boston.
Puritan influence on Boston began even before the settlement was founded with the 1629 Cambridge Agreement, which created the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was signed by the colony's first governor, John Winthrop. Puritan ethics and their focus on education also influenced the city's early history. In 1635, America's first public school, Boston Latin School, was founded in Boston.
Boston was the largest town in the Thirteen Colonies until Philadelphia outgrew it in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the town engaged in shipping and fishing during the colonial era. Boston was a primary stop on the Caribbean trade route and imported large amounts of molasses, which led to the creation of Boston baked beans.
Boston's economy stagnated in the decades prior to the American Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia both surpassed Boston in wealth. During this period, Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other New England cities were growing rapidly.
American Revolution and Siege of Boston
Boston played a central role in the American Revolution. Many crucial events of the American Revolution and subsequent American Revolutionary War occurred in or near Boston, where the city's revolutionary spirit against unpopular policies of the British Parliament was widespread and ultimately inspiring to the rest of the Thirteen Colonies. When Parliament passed the Stamp Act 1765, the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then lieutenant governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, were raved by Boston mobs. The British government responded by sending 2,000 troops of the 14th Foot and 29th Foot to Boston in 1768 to occupy the city and enforce Crown authority, which further inflamed tensions. In 1770, five soldiers of the 29th Foot fired into a Boston mob in what became known as the Boston Massacre, which led to the withdrawal of the occupational troops and helped fuel revolutionary sentiment in the colonies.
In May 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which many colonists saw as an attempt by Parliament to compel them to accept taxes established by the Townshend Acts. This led to the Boston Tea Party, a defining event of the American Revolution in which angered Bostonians threw an entire shipment of tea sent from the East India Company into Boston Harbor, escalating the American Revolution. Parliament responded by implementing the Intolerable Acts and demanding compensation for the destroyed tea. This response, in turn, angered the colonists further, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War, which were fought around Boston in Massachusetts Bay Colony.
During the siege of Boston from April 19, 1775, to March 17, 1776, New England-based Patriot militia impeded movement by the British Army. Sir William Howe, then commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured Charlestown in present-day Boston during the Battle of Bunker Hill in what proved to be a pyrrhic victory. Bunker Hill also demonstrated the skill and training of the Patriot militia, and led the British to avoid further large-scale engagements for the rest of the Boston campaign.
On June 14, 1775, in an effort to unify the Revolutionary War effort, the Second Continental Congress, convening in the colonial-era capital of Philadelphia, founded the Continental Army and unanimously appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief. Washington then immediately departed Philadelphia for Boston, where he arrived on July 2 and led the Continental Army in the siege. Fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes, and American troops faced challenges with a deficiency of munitions and supplies. Boston Neck, then narrow and only approximately 100 feet wide, impeded Washington's ability to launch a frontal assault on Boston, which led to a prolonged stalemate between the American besiegers and the besieged British garrison. A young American officer, Rufus Putnam, came up with a plan to make portable fortifications out of wood, which were erected on the frozen ground under cover of darkness. Putnam supervised the effort, which successfully installed the fortifications and dozens of cannons on Dorchester Heights that Henry Knox brought through the snow from Fort Ticonderoga. When the British discovered the newly emplaced artillery, they responded by launching a cannon barrage for two hours, which proved unable to reach the American cannons. Perceiving that his position was untenable, Howe ordered his troops to evacuate Boston, which was carried out on March 17. The date is celebrated annually in Boston as Evacuation Day.