Massachusetts
state of the United States of America
Massachusetts ( MASS-ə-CHOO-sits, -zits; Massachusett: Muhsachuweesut [məhswatʃəwiːsət]), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to its south, New Hampshire and Vermont to its north, and New York to its west. Massachusetts is the seventh-smallest state by land area. With an estimated population of over 7.1 million, it is the most populous state in New England (with nearly half of all New Englanders residing in Massachusetts), the 16th-most-populous in the United States, and the third-most densely populated U.S. state after New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Massachusetts was a site of early English colonization. The Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims of Mayflower. In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, taking its name from the Indigenous Massachusett people, also established settlements in Boston and Salem. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. The American Revolution originated in Massachusetts, with Boston becoming known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for its political agitation. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Massachusetts” is state of the United States of America. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Massachusetts, state and United, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “state of the United States of America” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q771. VIAF identifies the subject as 130169058. The Library of Congress control number is n79007084. Authority coordinates are 42.300, -71.800. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1620, 1630, 1692 and 1786.
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This entry incorporates text from “Massachusetts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.