Massachusetts is named after the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the eastern part of the state, and is one of the original 13 colonies. It is the 7^th smallest state in the United States. Despite its small size, Massachusetts features numerous topographically distinctive regions. The large coastal plain of the Atlantic Ocean in the eastern section of the state contains Greater Boston, along with most of the state’s population, as well as the distinctive Cape Cod peninsula. To the west lies the hilly, rural region of Central Massachusetts, and beyond that, the Connecticut River Valley. Along the western border of Massachusetts lies the highest elevated part of the state, the Berkshires.

The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a powerful commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, and transcendentalist movements. Massachusetts is home to numerous museums and historical sites. Historically themes museums and sites such as the Springfield armory National Historic Site in Springfield, Boston’s Freedom Trail and nearby Minute Man National Historical Park, both which preserve a number of sites important during the American Revolution, the Lowell National Historical Park, which focuses on some of the earliest mills and canals of the industrial revolution in the U.S., the Black Heritage Trail in Boston, which includes important African-American and abolitionist sites in Boston, and the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, all showcase various periods of Massachusetts’ history.

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