About Boston

Boston is the capital and largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. It is the unofficial capital of the region known as New England, and one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most culturally significant large cities in the United States. Its economy is based on education, health care, finance, and technology.

Boston has many nicknames. The City on a Hill came from the original Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor John Winthrop's goal to create the biblical "City on a Hill." It also refers to Boston's original three hills. Beantown refers to early Bostonian merchants' habit for making baked beans with imported molasses. The Hub is a shortened form of writer Oliver Wendell Holmes's phrase The Hub of the Solar System, now more commonly referred to as The Hub of the Universe. William Tudor, co-founder of the North American Review, christened the city The Athens of America for its great cultural and intellectual influence. Boston is sometimes called Puritan City because its founders were Puritans. The city is also sometimes called The Cradle of Liberty for its role in instigating the American Revolution. Citizens of Boston and the surrounding area are called Bostonians.

The city lies at the center of the Boston CMSA (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area), the seventh largest in the United States. The area encompasses parts of the states of New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The city also lies at the center of Greater Boston, which also includes the cities of Cambridge, Brookline, Quincy, Newton, and many suburban communities farther from Boston.

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