Cape Cod, Massachusetts
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Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The name Cape Cod, coined in 1602 by
Bartholomew Gosnold Bartholomew Gosnold (1571 – 22 August 1607) was an English barrister, explorer and privateer who was instrumental in founding the Virginia Company in London and Jamestown in colonial America. He led the first recorded European expeditio ...
, is the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S. As defined by the
Cape Cod Commission The Cape Cod Commission is a regional planning authority and department of Barnstable County. It was created in 1990 by an Act of the Massachusetts General Court and confirmed by a majority of county voters. In the wake of an unprecedented growth ...
's enabling legislation, Cape Cod is conterminous with
Barnstable County, Massachusetts Barnstable County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. At the 2020 census, the population was 228,996. Its shire town is Barnstable. The county consists of Cape Cod and associated islands (some adjacent islands are in Duke ...
. It extends from
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
in the northeast to
Woods Hole Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at ...
in the southwest, and is bordered by
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
to the northwest. The Cape is divided into fifteen
towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...
, several of which are in turn made up of multiple named villages. Cape Cod forms the southern boundary of the
Gulf of Maine , image = , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = GulfofMaine2.jpg , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Major features of the Gulf of Maine , location = Northeast coast of the ...
, which extends north-eastward to
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...
. Since 1914, most of Cape Cod has been separated from the mainland by the Cape Cod Canal. The canal cuts roughly across the base of the peninsula, though small portions of the Cape Cod towns of
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
and
Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
lie on the mainland side of the canal. Two highway bridges cross the Cape Cod Canal: the
Sagamore Bridge The Sagamore Bridge in Sagamore, Massachusetts carries Route 6 and the Claire Saltonstall Bikeway across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the mainland of Massachusetts. It is the more northeastern of two automobile canal crossing ...
and the
Bourne Bridge The Bourne Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts carries Route 28 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts. It won the American Institute of Steel Construction's Class "A" Award of Merit as the "Most Beautiful ...
. In addition, the
Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge The Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge (also known as the Buzzards Bay Railroad Bridge), a vertical lift bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts near Buzzards Bay, carries railroad traffic across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the mainland. De ...
carries railway freight and provides limited passenger service onto the Cape.


Region of Cape Cod and the Islands

Like Cape Cod itself, the islands south of the Cape have evolved from whaling and trading areas to become resort destinations, attracting wealthy families, celebrities, and tourists. These include the large nearby islands of Nantucket and
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
. Both islands are also famous summer tourist destinations, commonly accessed by ferry from several locations on the cape. The phrases ''Cape Cod and the Islands'' and ''the Cape and Islands'' are often used to describe the whole region of Barnstable County,
Dukes County Dukes County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,600, making it the second-least populous county in Massachusetts. Its county seat is Edgartown. Dukes County comprises the Viney ...
(including Martha's Vineyard and the smaller
Elizabeth Islands The Elizabeth Islands are a chain of small islands extending southwest from the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the United States. They are located at the outer edge of Buzzards Bay, north of Martha's Vineyard, from which they are ...
), and Nantucket County. Several small islands right off Cape Cod, including
Monomoy Island Monomoy Island is an spit of sand extending southwest from Chatham, Cape Cod off the Massachusetts mainland. Because of shifting sands and water levels, it is often connected to the mainland, and at other times is separated from it. It is ho ...
, Monomoscoy Island, Popponesset Island, and Seconsett Island, are also in Barnstable County. The
Forbes family The Forbes family is one of the components of the Boston Brahmins—they are a wealthy extended American family long prominent in Boston, Massachusetts. The family's fortune originates from trading opium and tea between North America and China ...
-owned
Naushon Island Naushon Island is the largest of the Elizabeth Islands in southeastern Massachusetts. It is part of the town of Gosnold, Massachusetts, and is owned by the Forbes family. As of the 2000 census, the island had a permanent population of 30 people ...
was first purchased by
John Murray Forbes John Murray Forbes (February 23, 1813 – October 12, 1898) was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in ...
. Naushon is one of the Elizabeth Islands, many of which are privately owned. One of the publicly accessible Elizabeths is the southernmost island in the chain,
Cuttyhunk Island Cuttyhunk Island is the outermost of the Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. A small outpost for the harvesting of sassafras was occupied for a few weeks in 1602, arguably making it the first English settlement in New England. Cuttyhunk is locat ...
, with a year-round population of 52 people. Several prominent families have established compounds or estates on the larger islands, making these islands some of the wealthiest resorts in the Northeast, yet they retain much of the early merchant trading and whaling culture. Cape Cod in particular is a popular retirement area; 31.8% of the population of Barnstable County is 65 years old or older., and the average age of residents is the highest of any area in
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
. Cape Cod is majority
Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...
, but by a smaller margin than the rest of Massachusetts. The bulk of the land in the area is
glacial A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...
terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...
and represents the southernmost extent of glacial coverage in southeast New England; similar glacial formations make up Long Island in New York and
Block Island Block Island is an island in the U.S. state of Rhode Island located in Block Island Sound approximately south of the mainland and east of Montauk Point, Long Island, New York, named after Dutch explorer Adriaen Block. It is part of Washingt ...
in Rhode Island.


Geography and political divisions


Physical geography and boundaries

The name "Cape Cod", as it was first used in 1602, applied only to the very tip of the peninsula. It remained that way for 125 years, until the "Precinct of Cape Cod" was incorporated as the Town of Provincetown. No longer in "official" use over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all of the land east of the Manomet and Scusset rivers – essentially along the line that became the Cape Cod Canal. The creation of the canal separated the majority of the peninsula from the mainland. Most agencies, including the
Cape Cod Commission The Cape Cod Commission is a regional planning authority and department of Barnstable County. It was created in 1990 by an Act of the Massachusetts General Court and confirmed by a majority of county voters. In the wake of an unprecedented growth ...
and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...
(FEMA), treat the Cape as an island with regard to disaster preparedness, groundwater management, and the like. Cape Codders tend to refer to the land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape", though the legal delineation of Cape Cod, coincident to the boundaries of Barnstable County, includes portions of the towns of Bourne and Sandwich that are located north of the canal.
Cape Cod Bay A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...
lies in between Cape Cod and the mainland – bounded on the north by a line between
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
and Marshfield. North of Cape Cod Bay (and Provincetown) is
Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Gulf of Maine that forms part of the central coastline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Description The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about . Its ...
, which contains the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, located north of Provincetown. Cape Cod Bay and Massachusetts Bay are both part of the Gulf of Maine, which includes the waters between the Cape and Nova Scotia. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east of Cape Cod, and to the southwest of the Cape is
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; its creation shortened the trade route between New York and Boston by . Cape Cod extends into the Atlantic Ocean, with a breadth of between , and covers more than of shoreline. Its elevation ranges from at its highest point, at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of
Joint Base Cape Cod The Joint Base Cape Cod is a state-designated joint base created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States War Department in 1935. Governor James Curley signed the state bill to allocate and purchase land for a military facilit ...
, down to sea level. Cape Cod and the Islands form part of a continuous archipelagic region consisting of a chain of islands running from Long Island to the tip of the Cape. This region is historically and collectively known by naturalists as the
Outer Lands The Outer Lands is the prominent terminal moraine archipelagic region off the southern coast of New England in the United States. This eight-county region of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, comprises the peninsula of Cape Cod and th ...
.


Towns and villages

Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 15 towns:
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
,
Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
, Falmouth, Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth,
Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...
,
Dennis Dennis or Denis is a first or last name from the Greco-Roman name Dionysius, via one of the Christian saints named Dionysius. The name came from Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstatic states, particularly those produced by wine, which is someti ...
, Brewster,
Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet,
Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...
, and
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
. Each of these towns include a number of villages; see
Barnstable County Barnstable County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. At the 2020 census, the population was 228,996. Its shire town is Barnstable. The county consists of Cape Cod and associated islands (some adjacent islands are in Duk ...
for a complete list. Barnstable, the most populated municipality on Cape Cod, is the only one to have adopted a city form of government, whose legislative body is an elected 13-member council. However, like other smaller Massachusetts cities, Barnstable retained its "Town of Barnstable" moniker. All of the other towns elect a 5-member Board of Selectmen as the executive policy-setting board, and utilize
Town Meeting Town meeting is a form of local government in which most or all of the members of a community are eligible to legislate policy and budgets for local government. It is a town- or city-level meeting in which decisions are made, in contrast with ...
s as their legislative body.


Cape Cod and the Islands

To the south of Cape Cod lie
Nantucket Sound Nantucket Sound_(geography), Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is long and wide, and is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha's Vineyard on ...
; Nantucket and
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
, both large islands; and the mostly privately owned
Elizabeth Islands The Elizabeth Islands are a chain of small islands extending southwest from the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the United States. They are located at the outer edge of Buzzards Bay, north of Martha's Vineyard, from which they are ...
.


Sections

For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections (see map): * The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...
and
Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...
as well as several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including
East Falmouth East Falmouth is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located at the base of Massachusetts' "fishhook" peninsula (''see map at right''). The population was 6,038 at the ...
, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and
Woods Hole Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at ...
, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Hatchville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
is home to the
Massachusetts Maritime Academy Massachusetts Maritime Academy (Mass Maritime) is a public university in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, focused on maritime-related fields. It was established in 1891 and is the second oldest state maritime academy in the United States. Originall ...
, in the village of
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
, along the canal,
Joint Base Cape Cod The Joint Base Cape Cod is a state-designated joint base created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States War Department in 1935. Governor James Curley signed the state bill to allocate and purchase land for a military facilit ...
, Aptucxet Trading Post, the annual
Bourne Scallop Festival Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
in September, and, until 1884, was part of Sandwich. Sandwich, the oldest town on Cape Cod, founded in 1637, is home to the Dexter Grist Mill, the historic
Hoxie House The Hoxie House (c. 1675) is a saltbox house located in Sandwich, Massachusetts. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, it's likely the oldest extant house "in the area". The residence was owned by both the Smith and Hoxie families ...
,
Heritage Museums and Gardens Heritage Museums and Gardens (100 acres), formerly the Heritage Plantation of Sandwich, is located at 67 Grove Street, Sandwich, Massachusetts. The public garden, with its nationally significant collection of rhododendrons hybridized by Charles De ...
, and the
Sandwich Glass Museum Sandwich Glass Museum is a glass museum in Sandwich, Massachusetts, featuring a wide range of rare glass, including glass from the local Boston & Sandwich Glass Factory which was founded in Sandwich by Deming Jarves Deming Jarves (1790–186 ...
. Mashpee, is the home of the
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (formerly Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, Inc.) is one of two federally recognized tribes of Wampanoag people in Massachusetts. Recognized in 2007, they are headquartered in Mashpee, Massachusetts, Mashpee on ...
of Native Americans. * The Mid-Cape area includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis. The area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along
Nantucket Sound Nantucket Sound_(geography), Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is long and wide, and is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha's Vineyard on ...
, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of
Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville,
Cotuit Cotuit ( ) is one of the villages of the Town of Barnstable on Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. Located on a peninsula on the south side of Barnstable about midway between Falmouth and Hyannis, Cotuit is bounded by t ...
, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and
West Barnstable West Barnstable is a seaside village in the northwest part of the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Once devoted to agricultural pursuits, West Barnstable now is largely residential and historic. Originally founded in 1639 as part of its neighbori ...
, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigville, Cummaquid,
Hyannis Port Hyannis Port (or Hyannisport) is a small residential village located in Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. It is an affluent summer community on Hyannis Harbor, 1.4 miles (2.3 km) to the south-southwest of Hyannis. Community It has ...
, Santuit, Wianno, and others). The villages of Yarmouth are South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and
Yarmouth Port Yarmouth Port is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yarmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,320 at the 2010 census. Yarmouth Port was home to the original Christmas Tree Shops until its cl ...
. There are five villages in Dennis, including North Dennis, East Dennis, West Dennis, Dennis Port, and South Dennis. * The Lower Cape & Outer Cape traditionally includes all of the rest of the Cape, or the towns of
Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...
, Brewster,
Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet,
Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...
, and
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
. In the present day, the five outermost towns (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans) are more commonly and collectively known as the Outer Cape. This area is home to the
Cape Cod National Seashore The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
, a national park that encompasses much of the Outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast from Orleans to Provincetown. The Outer Cape is home to popular beaches such as Nauset Light Beach and Coast Guard Beach in Eastham, Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Ballston Beach in Truro, and Skaket Beach in Orleans. This area is less populated than the rest of Cape Cod, though Provincetown can have a crowded, city-like atmosphere during the summer season. Provincetown has become a major gay & lesbian resort destination – the town is regarded as one of the largest
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...
resort communities in the United States. Provincetown is also renowned for its historic fishing fleets and Stellwagen Bank, a popular fishing ground and
whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins ( cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. 2 ...
destination, is located a few miles north of Race Point.


Geology

The bulk of the land on Cape Cod consists of
glacial landform Glacial landforms are landforms created by the action of glaciers. Most of today's glacial landforms were created by the movement of large ice sheets during the Quaternary glaciations. Some areas, like Fennoscandia and the southern Andes, have ...
s, formed by
terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...
and
outwash plain An outwash plain, also called a sandur (plural: ''sandurs''), sandr or sandar, is a plain formed of glaciofluvial deposits due to meltwater outwash at the terminus of a glacier. As it flows, the glacier grinds the underlying rock surface and c ...
s. This represents the southernmost extent of glacial coverage in southeast New England; similar glacial formations make up
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
in New York and
Block Island Block Island is an island in the U.S. state of Rhode Island located in Block Island Sound approximately south of the mainland and east of Montauk Point, Long Island, New York, named after Dutch explorer Adriaen Block. It is part of Washingt ...
in
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
. Together, these formations are known as the
Outer Lands The Outer Lands is the prominent terminal moraine archipelagic region off the southern coast of New England in the United States. This eight-county region of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, comprises the peninsula of Cape Cod and th ...
, or more obscurely as the "Isles of Stirling". Geologically speaking, Cape Cod is quite young, having been laid down some 16,000 to 20,000 years ago. Most of Cape Cod's geological history involves the advance and retreat of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million year ...
in the late
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
geological era and the subsequent changes in sea level. Using
radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...
techniques, researchers have determined that around 23,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its maximum southward advance over North America, and then started to retreat. Many kettle ponds – clear, cold lakes – were formed and remain on Cape Cod as a result of the receding glacier. By about 18,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated past Cape Cod. By roughly 15,000 years ago, it had retreated past southern New England. When so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive ice sheets, the sea level was lower. Truro's bayside beaches used to be a petrified forest, before it became a beach. As the ice began to melt, the sea began to rise. Initially, sea level rose quickly, about per 1,000 years, but then the rate declined. On Cape Cod, sea level rose roughly per millennium between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. After that, it continued to rise at about per millennium. By 6,000 years ago, the sea level was high enough to start eroding the glacial deposits that the vanished continental ice sheet had left on Cape Cod. The water transported the eroded deposits north and south along the outer Cape's shoreline through a process known as longshore drift. Those reworked sediments that moved north went to the tip of Cape Cod. The entire town of Provincetown, at the extreme tip of the Cape, is a spit consisting largely of deposited marine sediment that was eroded and transported from farther south along the shore. Those sediments that instead moved south created the islands and shoals of Monomoy. So while other parts of the Cape have dwindled from the action of the waves, these parts of the Cape have grown through the deposition of sediment in just the last 6,000 years. This process continues today. Due to their exposure to the open ocean, the Cape and islands are subject to considerable
coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...
. Geologists say that due to erosion, the Cape will be completely submerged by the sea within several thousand years. This erosion causes the washout of beaches and the destruction of the barrier islands; for example, the ocean broke through the barrier island at Chatham during
Hurricane Bob Hurricane Bob was one of the costliest hurricanes in New England history. The second named storm and first hurricane of the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season, Bob developed from an area of low pressure near The Bahamas on August 16. The depressi ...
in 1991, allowing waves and storm surges to hit the coast with no obstruction. Consequently, the sediment and sand from the beaches is being washed away and deposited elsewhere. While this destroys land in some places, it creates land elsewhere, most noticeably in marshes where sediment is deposited by flowing water. Cape Cod's aquifer consists of six hydrologically independent
lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...
from which all the towns on the Cape obtain drinking water (except Falmouth, which, in 2015, drew 43.5% of its water from Long Pond). Contamination with industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs from septic systems is a concern.


Climate

Under the
Koppen Climate Classification Koppen is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Dan Koppen (born 1979), American football offensive lineman * Erwin Koppen (1929–1990), German literary scholar * Luise Koppen (1855–1922), German author * Wladimir Köppen (1846 ...
, the Cape Cod area has a temperate humid climate or Cfb climate (coldest month has a mean temperature above -3 C (26.4 F) but below 18 C (64.4 F). Locally, the Cape has a more moderate climate than inland locations in eastern New England. On occasion it takes the brunt of extreme weather systems such as the Blizzard of 2005 and
Hurricane Bob Hurricane Bob was one of the costliest hurricanes in New England history. The second named storm and first hurricane of the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season, Bob developed from an area of low pressure near The Bahamas on August 16. The depressi ...
. Because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean on three sides, temperatures are typically a few degrees lower in the summer and often several degrees higher in the winter than the adjacent mainland. Two ocean currents (the
Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...
, a warm ocean current from the south) and the
Labrador Current The Labrador Current is a cold current in the North Atlantic Ocean which flows from the Arctic Ocean south along the coast of Labrador and passes around Newfoundland, continuing south along the east coast of Canada near Nova Scotia. Near Nova Scot ...
, a cold ocean current from the north), meander and interact with each other. As a result, the ocean temperatures on the eastern shore of Cape Cod rarely gets above , while along the southern coast (
Nantucket Sound Nantucket Sound_(geography), Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is long and wide, and is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha's Vineyard on ...
), water temperatures can sometimes reach or higher. Cape Cod's climate is also known for a delayed spring season due to the sea remaining cold from the winter; by the same token, the summer heat retained in the sea moderates fall temperatures in comparison to the adjacent inland area. The highest temperature yet recorded on the peninsula was in Provincetown,; the lowest temperature recorded was in Barnstable. The water surrounding Cape Cod moderates winter temperatures nearly enough to extend the
humid subtropical A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
climate zone to what could be its northernmost limit in eastern North America, as the majority of Cape Cod is in USDA
hardiness zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...
7a. Consequently, many subtropical indicator plant species typically found in more southerly latitudes are grown there, including ''
Camellias ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species, with some controver ...
'', ''
Ilex opaca ''Ilex opaca'', the American holly, is a species of holly, native to the eastern and south-central United States, from coastal Massachusetts south to central Florida, and west to southeastern Missouri and eastern Texas. Description ''Ilex opac ...
'', ''
Magnolia grandiflora ''Magnolia grandiflora'', commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas. Reaching in height, it is a ...
'' and ''
Albizia julibrissin ''Albizia julibrissin'', the Persian silk tree, pink silk tree, or mimosa tree, is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae, native to southwestern Asia and eastern Asia. The genus is named after the Italian nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi, w ...
''. However, Cape Cod falls below the threshold, as the warmest month, July, averages around . Therefore, the climate may be better characterized as either a
maritime climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...
or a
humid continental A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freez ...
climate (particularly on the northern coast of the upper and mid cape, which is somewhat sheltered from the cooler onshore wind to the south). Precipitation on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the lowest in the southern New England region, averaging slightly less than a year (most parts of New England average ). This is due to the maritime influence inhibiting summertime thunderstorm development and maintenance. The region does not experience a greater number of sunny days, however, as the number of cloudy days is the same as inland locales, in addition to increased fog. On average, roughly of snow, which is about less than Boston, falls in an average winter. Once every five or six years, a
tropical storm A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
, accompanied by very high and potentially damaging winds and heavy rain, will strike the region. About once every 11 or 12 years a
hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
brings damaging winds and
storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...
s to the region. Several Category 3 storms have struck Cape Cod since record-keeping began, such as a hurricane in 1869, the
1938 New England hurricane The 1938 New England Hurricane (also referred to as the Great New England Hurricane and the Long Island Express Hurricane) was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike Long Island, New York, and New England. The stor ...
, and
Hurricane Carol Hurricane Carol was among the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island in the United States. It developed from a tropical wave near the Bahamas on August 25, 1954, and slowly strengthened as it ...
in 1954. Strong Category 2 storms, such as the 1869 Saxby Gale,
Hurricane Edna Hurricane Edna was a deadly and destructive major hurricane that impacted the United States East Coast in September of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. It was one of two hurricanes to strike Massachusetts in that year, the other being Hurrican ...
in 1954, and
Hurricane Bob Hurricane Bob was one of the costliest hurricanes in New England history. The second named storm and first hurricane of the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season, Bob developed from an area of low pressure near The Bahamas on August 16. The depressi ...
in 1991, also caused considerable damage. Notable Category 1 storms include the 1944 Great Atlantic hurricane and
Hurricane Donna Hurricane Donna, known in Puerto Rico as Hurricane San Lorenzo, was the strongest hurricane of the 1960 Atlantic hurricane season, and caused severe damage to the Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles, and the East Coast of the United States, e ...
in 1960. Other notable storms include the Gale of 1815, which would likely have been rated a strong hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and the so-called "
Perfect Storm A perfect storm is a meteorological event aggravated by a rare combination of circumstances. The term is used by analogy to an unusually severe storm that results from a rare combination of meteorological phenomena. Origin The Oxford English Dic ...
" of October 31, 1991. The February 2013 nor'easter produced winds in excess of and dropped over of snow on some parts of Cape Cod. The storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of Cape Cod residents, some for up to two weeks.


Native population

Cape Cod has been the home of the
indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
Wampanoag The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 17 ...
for centuries prior to
European colonization The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
. They lived from the sea and were accomplished farmers. They understood the principles of
sustainable forest management Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management has to keep the balance between three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural. ...
, and were known to light controlled fires to keep the underbrush in check. They helped the Pilgrims, who arrived in the fall of 1620, survive at their new
Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the British America, first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the pa ...
. The Wampanoag gradually lost their lands during the period of European colonization through land cessions and violent conflict with white settlers. The documentary ''Natives of the Narrowland'' (1993), narrated by actress
Julie Harris Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary stage work, she received five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play. Harris debuted on Broadway in 1945, against the wish ...
, shows the history of the Wampanoag people through Cape Cod archaeological sites. In 1974, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council was formed to articulate the concerns of those with Native American ancestry. They petitioned the federal government in 1975 and again in 1990 for official recognition of the Mashpee Wampanoag as a tribe. In May 2007, the Wampanoag tribe was federally recognized.


History


European exploration

Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers. It may have been the "Promontory of
Vinland Vinland, Vineland, or Winland ( non, Vínland ᚠᛁᚾᛚᛅᚾᛏ) was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John ...
" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985–1025). The Manomet River area (taken up by the western end of the Cape Cod Canal in the early 20th century) is claimed by some to have been visited by
Leif Eiriksson Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson, or Leif Ericson, ; Modern Icelandic: ; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Leiv Eiriksson'' also known as Leif the Lucky (), was a Norsemen, Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to have s ...
, and a stone wall discovered in Provincetown in 1805 is also claimed to have been built by his younger brother
Thorvald Eiriksson Thorvald Eiriksson ( non, Þórvaldr Eiríksson ; Modern Icelandic: ) was the son of Erik the Red and brother of Leif Erikson. The only Medieval Period source material available regarding Thorvald Eiriksson are the two '' Vinland sagas''; the ' ...
around 1007 AD, when the keel of his ship was repaired in the harbor, according to
Norse saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, from the Super NES to the Pl ...
s. He was killed later in the same journey, and is said to have been returned to this spot for burial. However, there is no tangible support of the presence of Norse voyagers in Cape Cod, and the view is not generally accepted by archaeologists or historians.
Giovanni da Verrazzano Giovanni da Verrazzano ( , , often misspelled Verrazano in English; 1485–1528) was an Italian ( Florentine) explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France. He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlanti ...
approached it from the south in 1524. He named
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
Claudia, after
Claude of France Claude of France (13 October 1499 – 20 July 1524) was Queen of France by marriage to King Francis I. She was also ruling Duchess of Brittany from 1514 until her death in 1524. She was a daughter of King Louis XII of France and his second wife ...
, the wife of
Francis I of France Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...
. In 1525, Portuguese explorer
Estêvão Gomes Estêvão Gomes, also known by the Spanish version of his name, Esteban Gómez (c. 1483 – 1538), was a Portuguese cartography, cartographer and explorer. He sailed at the service of Crown of Castile, Castile (Spain) in the fleet of Ferdinand M ...
called it Cabo de la Arenas while sailing under the
Spanish crown , coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg , coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain , image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg , incumbent = Felipe VI , incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
. In 1602,
Bartholomew Gosnold Bartholomew Gosnold (1571 – 22 August 1607) was an English barrister, explorer and privateer who was instrumental in founding the Virginia Company in London and Jamestown in colonial America. He led the first recorded European expeditio ...
named the tip Cape Cod, the surviving term and the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.
Samuel de Champlain Samuel de Champlain (; Fichier OrigineFor a detailed analysis of his baptismal record, see RitchThe baptism act does not contain information about the age of Samuel, neither his birth date nor his place of birth. – 25 December 1635) was a Fre ...
charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606, and
Henry Hudson Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States. In 1607 and 160 ...
landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614, and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and – contrary to the popular myth of
Plymouth Rock Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the ''Mayflower'' Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in December 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known writt ...
– made their first landing near present-day
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.


European settlement

Cape Cod was among the first places settled by Puritan colonists in North America. The Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly, aside from Barnstable (1639),
Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
(1637), and Yarmouth (1639). The final town to be established on the Cape was
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
in 1884, breaking off from Sandwich. Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from
Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Gulf of Maine that forms part of the central coastline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Description The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about . Its ...
to
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
is shown on Southack's map of 1717. The present Cape Cod Canal was slowly developed from 1870 to 1914. The federal government purchased it in 1928. The Cape's vegetation was
depauperate A depauperate ecosystem is an ecosystem which is lacking in numbers or variety of species, often because it lacks enough stored chemical elements and resources required for life. Thus, depauperate ecosystems often cannot support rapid growth of f ...
and trees were scarce by the time that
Henry Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and ...
saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857, because of early colonial settlement and intensive land use. The settlers heated by fires, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m3) of wood to heat a home, so they cleared most of Cape Cod of timber early on. They planted familiar crops, but these were unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. The settlers practiced burning of woodlands to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Farmers grazed their cattle on the grassy dunes of coastal Massachusetts, only to watch "in horror as the denuded sands 'walked' over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences." Dunes on the outer Cape became more common, and many harbors filled in with eroded soils. By 1800, much of Cape Cod's firewood had to be transported by boat from
Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the raising of
merino The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the bree ...
sheep that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early
industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
occurred through much of Massachusetts and
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
, but it mostly bypassed Cape Cod due to a lack of significant water power in the area. The Cape developed as a large fishing and
whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry ...
center as a result, and also because of its geographic position. After 1860 and the opening of the
American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
, farmers abandoned agriculture on the Cape. By 1950, forests had recovered to an extent not seen since the 18th century.


Modern era

Cape Cod became a summer haven for city dwellers beginning at the end of the 19th century. Improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, such as
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
and Falmouth, accessible to
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
ians. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Northeastern mercantile elite built many large, shingled "cottages" along
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was highlighted by writers including
Joseph C. Lincoln Joseph Crosby Lincoln (February 13, 1870 – March 10, 1944) was an American literature, American author of novels, poems, and short stories, many set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. Biography Lincoln was born in 1870 in Brewster, Massachusetts, o ...
, who published novels and countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as ''
The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'' and the ''Delineator''.
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
made the first transatlantic
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach below the bluffs where his station was located is now called Marconi Beach. In 1914, he began construction of a new transatlantic wireless receiver station in
Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
and a companion transmitter station in
Marion Marion may refer to: People *Marion (given name) *Marion (surname) *Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion" *Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992) Places Antarctica * Mario ...
. In 1920, the stations were acquired by RCA and, in 1921, Chatham began operations as a maritime radio station communicating to ships at sea using the callsign WCC. WCC supported the communications of
Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
,
Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
,
Admiral Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...
, and the '' Hindenburg''. Marconi chose Chatham due to its vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water.
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...
narrated a 17-minute documentary in 2005 about the history of the Chatham Station. Much of the east-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline, already slated for housing subdivisions, was made a part of the
Cape Cod National Seashore The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
by President
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
. It was protected from private development and preserved for public use. Large portions are open to the public, including the Marconi Site in Wellfleet. This is a park encompassing the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission from the United States. (
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
used Marconi's equipment for this transmission.) The
Kennedy Compound The Kennedy Compound consists of three houses on of waterfront property on Cape Cod along Nantucket Sound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was once the home of Joseph P. Kennedy, an American businessman, investor, poli ...
in
Hyannis Port Hyannis Port (or Hyannisport) is a small residential village located in Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. It is an affluent summer community on Hyannis Harbor, 1.4 miles (2.3 km) to the south-southwest of Hyannis. Community It has ...
was President Kennedy's
summer White House Listed below are the private residences of the various presidents of the United States. For a list of official residences, see President of the United States § Residence. Private homes of the presidents This is a list of homes where ...
during his presidency, and the Kennedy family continues to maintain residences on the compound. President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
maintained a summer home in the Gray Gables section of Bourne. Other notable residents of Cape Cod have included actress
Julie Harris Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary stage work, she received five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play. Harris debuted on Broadway in 1945, against the wish ...
, US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, figure skater
Todd Eldredge Todd James Eldredge (born August 28, 1971) is an American former competitive figure skater. He is the 1996 World champion, a six-time U.S. national champion (1990, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2002), a three-time Olympian (1992, 1998, 2002), and a ...
, composer and radio personality
Canary Burton Canary Lee Burton, is an American keyboardist, composer and writer. Biography Burton was born on September 16, 1942, in Richmond, California. In 1972 she moved to Moscow, Idaho, to attend the University of Idaho where she was one of th ...
, and novelists
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...
and
Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...
. Influential natives included patriot James Otis, historian and writer
Mercy Otis Warren Mercy Otis Warren (September 14, eptember 25, New Style1728 – October 19, 1814) was an American activist poet, playwright, and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the Revolution, she had published poems and pla ...
, jurist Lemuel Shaw, and naval officer
John Percival John Percival (3 April 1779 – 7 September 1862), known as Mad Jack Percival, was a celebrated officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War with France, the War of 1812, the campaign against West Indies pirates, and the Mexican–Amer ...
.


Lighthouses

Beginning in 1797,
lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...
s were erected along Cape Cod to aid in navigation.
Highland Light The Highland Light (previously known as Cape Cod Light) is an active lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore in North Truro, Massachusetts. The current tower was erected in 1857, replacing two earlier towers that had been built in 1797 and 18 ...
(or Cape Cod Light) is the oldest and tallest of these, and remains as one of a number of working lighthouses on Cape Cod and the Islands. Many of Cape Cod's earliest lighthouses featured a light tower that was attached directly to – and centered on the roof of – the keeper's dwelling. A stairway to the lantern room was accessible only from the top floor of the house. This came to be known as a Cape Cod style lighthouse, yet today, the only fully intact specimens are on the west coast of the United States. Most of Cape Cod's lighthouses are operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, with some exceptions, such as the
Nauset Light Nauset Light, officially Nauset Beach Light, is a restored lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore near Eastham, Massachusetts, erected in 1923 using the 1877 tower that was moved here from the Chatham Light. It is listed on the National Regis ...
, which has been owned since 1997 by the
Cape Cod National Seashore The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
(National Park Service) and operated since 2004 in partnership between that agency and the non-profit Nauset Light Preservation Society. In 1996, both Highland Light and Nauset Light were moved further from the shore because they were each at risk of being lost due to erosion by the sea. Highland Light, then from the ocean, was moved to the west, and Nauset Light, from the bluff, was moved west. The lighthouses of Cape Cod include: * Upper Cape:
Nobska Light Nobska Light, originally called Nobsque Light, also known as Nobska Point Light is a lighthouse located near the division between Buzzards Bay, Nantucket Sound, and Vineyard Sound in the settlement of Woods Hole, Massachusetts on the southwestern t ...
, Wing's Neck Light (privately owned), and Cleveland Ledge Light (also private). * Mid Cape: Sandy Neck Light,
Hyannis Harbor Light The Hyannis Rear Range Light, also known as the Hyannis Harbor Light, was a lighthouse and, for part of its life, one of a pair of range lights adjacent to Hyannis Harbor. The Range Rear tower was built in 1849 and equipped with a 5th order Fres ...
, Lewis Bay Light (or Hyannis Inner Harbor Light, also private),
Bishop and Clerks Light Bishop and Clerks Light is a lighthouse located in open water on Bishop and Clerks Rocks, about two nautical miles south of Point Gammon in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The light was established in a granite tower in 1858. It was automated in 1923 ...
, West Dennis Light (formerly the Bass River Light) * Lower Cape:
Chatham Light Chatham Lighthouse, known as Twin Lights prior to 1923, is a lighthouse in Chatham, Massachusetts, near the "elbow" of Cape Cod. The original station, close to the shore, was built in 1808 with two wooden towers, which were both replaced in 1841. ...
,
Monomoy Point Light Monomoy Point Light is a historic light in Chatham, Massachusetts. The station was established in 1823. The first light was a wood tower and brick lantern room on top of the keeper's house. The current tower, one of the first made of cast iron, ...
, Stage Harbor Light * Outer Cape: Long Point Light,
Wood End Light Wood End Light Lookout Station is a historic lighthouse, located at the southwest end of Long Point in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is located at Wood End, near the southernmost extent of the Provincetown Spit, and acts as a navigational aid ...
, Race Point Light,
Highland Light The Highland Light (previously known as Cape Cod Light) is an active lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore in North Truro, Massachusetts. The current tower was erected in 1857, replacing two earlier towers that had been built in 1797 and 18 ...
,
Nauset Light Nauset Light, officially Nauset Beach Light, is a restored lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore near Eastham, Massachusetts, erected in 1923 using the 1877 tower that was moved here from the Chatham Light. It is listed on the National Regis ...
,
Three Sisters of Nauset The Three Sisters of Nauset are a trio of historic lighthouses off Cable Road in Eastham, Massachusetts. The original three brick towers fell into the sea due to erosion in 1890 and were replaced with wooden towers on brick foundations in 1892. T ...
, Mayo Beach Light, Billingsgate Island Light


Transportation


Road

Cape Cod is connected to the mainland by a pair of canal-spanning highway bridges, the
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
and Sagamore that were constructed in the 1930s (replacing a 1912 drawbridge). The two parallel road bridges are four miles apart, with the Bourne Bridge to the west, and the Sagamore to the east. The bridges form a bottleneck, resulting in traffic backups of several miles during the tourist season - especially going on-cape at the beginning of the weekend and off-cape at the end of the weekend. The entire Cape is roughly bisected lengthwise by
U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...
, locally known as the Mid-Cape Highway and officially as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway.


Air and water

Commercial air service to Cape Cod operates out of
Cape Cod Gateway Airport Cape Cod Gateway Airport , also known as Boardman/Polando Field and formerly known as Barnstable Municipal Airport, is a public airport located on Cape Cod, north of the central business district of Hyannis, Massachusetts, Hyannis, in Barnstabl ...
and Provincetown Municipal Airport. General aviation airports are: *
Chatham Municipal Airport Chatham Municipal Airport is a public airport located two miles (3 km) northwest of the central business district of Chatham, a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The airport is owned by the Town of Chatham. It has a ...
* Falmouth Airpark *
Cape Cod Airfield Cape Cod Airfield, in Marstons Mills, Massachusetts is a public airport owned by the Town of Barnstable. History Cape Cod Airfield is located on the former site of Camp Perkins, a Massachusetts National Guard camp which was active on the si ...
in Marstons Mills, Barnstable There is one military airport at
Otis Air National Guard Base Otis Air National Guard Base is an Air National Guard installation located within Joint Base Cape Cod, a military training facility located on the western portion of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It was known ...
. There are ferry connections from Boston to Provincetown, as well as from Hyannis and Woods Hole to the islands.


Bus

Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority (CCRTA) operates a bus transit system of fixed and flexible routes, seasonal rail service to Boston, and a paratransit service in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts. The CCRTA was created under the provision ...
operates a year-round public bus system comprising three long-distance routes and a local bus in Hyannis and Barnstable Village. From mid June until October, additional local routes are added in Falmouth and Provincetown. CCRTA also operates Barnstable County's
ADA Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, ...
-required
paratransit Paratransit is the term used in North America, also known by other names such as community transport ( UK) for transportation services that supplement fixed-route mass transit by providing individualized rides without fixed routes or timetables. ...
(
dial-a-ride Demand-responsive transport (DRT), also known as demand-responsive transit, demand-responsive service,
US National Trans ...
) service, under the name "B-Bus." Long-distance bus service is available through Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway, with regular service to downtown Boston and
Logan International Airport General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...
, as well as less frequent service to Provincetown.
Peter Pan Bus Lines Peter Pan Bus Lines operates an intercity bus service in the Northeastern United States. It is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts. It operates service to/from to Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hamps ...
also runs long-distance service to T.F. Green Airport in
Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
; New York City; and service between Logan Airport, Boston
South Station South Station, officially The Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center at South Station, is the largest railroad station and intercity bus terminal in Greater Boston and New England's second-largest transportation center after Logan In ...
, and Woods Hole.


Rail service

The third bridge over the Cape Cod Canal is a vertical-lift
railroad bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
, providing an alternative land transport option. After the bridge, the track splits in two directions, heading towards Hyannis in one direction and North Falmouth in the other. The track to Hyannis is used for both freight and passenger services, while the Falmouth track is used mostly for freight with very limited passenger service.


Passenger

The CapeFlyer is a seasonal passenger rail service between Boston and Hyannis that operates on summer weekends from
Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
through Labor Day. Stops along or near the Cape include
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
,
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
, and Hyannis. The
Cape Cod Central Railroad The Cape Cod Central Railroad is a heritage railroad located on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It operates on a rail line known as the Cape Main Line which is owned by Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The line was previously owned and ope ...
is a
heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
on Cape Cod. The service is primarily tourist-oriented and includes a dinner train over a scenic route between Hyannis and the Cape Cod Canal lasting about 2 hours round trip. Select trains feature stops at
West Barnstable West Barnstable is a seaside village in the northwest part of the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Once devoted to agricultural pursuits, West Barnstable now is largely residential and historic. Originally founded in 1639 as part of its neighbori ...
and
Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
. Additional service is also provided from the Buzzards Bay station, and a small number of trains also depart from North Falmouth.


Freight

Active freight service remains in the Upper Cape, both along the main line from Bourne to Hyannis and on the spur to North Falmouth. One of the more frequent operations is the transport of municipal waste to a waste-to-energy plant in
Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...
, as well as removal of debris and refuse from
Joint Base Cape Cod The Joint Base Cape Cod is a state-designated joint base created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States War Department in 1935. Governor James Curley signed the state bill to allocate and purchase land for a military facilit ...
in Falmouth.
Massachusetts Coastal Railroad The Massachusetts Coastal Railroad is a Class III railroad serving south-eastern Massachusetts. The railroad maintains track from Hyannis to Framingham, with the railroad operating its own trains on the 97 miles of lines between Hyannis and Fa ...
is currently the sole operator of freight rail on the Cape, taking over from
Bay Colony Railroad The Bay Colony Railroad is a shortline railroad operating in Massachusetts. Formerly operating along most of the south coast region (including all lines on Cape Cod), Bay Colony currently operates only along a roughly six-mile stretch of track ...
in 2007.


Historic

Daily passenger rail service by the
New Haven Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...
from Boston to Cape Cod ended in June 1959. Summertime ''
Day Cape Codder The Cape Codder was a pair of day and night passenger trains run by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NH) from the latter 1920s to the mid 1960s, with some brief interruptions. Its distinction was the longest tenure of direct summerti ...
'' service by the New Haven from New York City to the Cape ended in 1964. In 1978, the tracks east of South Dennis were abandoned and replaced with the
Cape Cod Rail Trail The Cape Cod Rail Trail (CCRT) is a paved rail trail located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The trail route passes through the towns of Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet. It connects to the 6-plus mile (1 ...
. Another bike path, the
Shining Sea Bikeway The Shining Sea Bikeway is a rail trail on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts, United States. The path runs for from the Steamship Authority ferry terminal in Woods Hole to North Falmouth. History The trail was built on the right-of-way of ...
, was built over abandoned tracks between Woods Hole and Falmouth in 1975, and in 2008 the rail line between Falmouth and North Falmouth was removed and the right-of-way converted into an extension of the Shining Sea Bikeway. In 1986,
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
operated a seasonal service in the summer from New York City to Hyannis called the '' Cape Codder''. From 1988, Amtrak and the
Massachusetts Department of Transportation The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) oversees roads, public transit, aeronautics, and transportation licensing and registration in the US state of Massachusetts. It was created on November 1, 2009, by the 186th Session of t ...
increased service to a daily frequency, until service ended in 1996, leaving a gap until the current CapeFlyer service began in 2013.


Bicycle

Bicycle and pedestrian access to the Cape is possible via a sidewalk on the southbound side of the
Bourne Bridge The Bourne Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts carries Route 28 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts. It won the American Institute of Steel Construction's Class "A" Award of Merit as the "Most Beautiful ...
. There are a number of dedicated bike trails and paths around the Cape, including: *
Cape Cod Rail Trail The Cape Cod Rail Trail (CCRT) is a paved rail trail located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The trail route passes through the towns of Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet. It connects to the 6-plus mile (1 ...
- South Dennis to Wellfleet *
Old Colony Rail Trail The Old Colony Rail Trail is a paved rail trail located in Harwich and Chatham, Massachusetts. It occupies the Old Colony Railroad's abandoned Chatham Branch railroad right-of-way. Most of the trail follows roughly the path of the old railbed, e ...
- Harwich and Chatham, connecting with the Cape Cod Rail Trail * Various trails in the
Cape Cod National Seashore The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
* Various trails in
Nickerson State Park Nickerson State Park is a state-owned, public recreation area of more than located on Cape Cod in Brewster, Massachusetts. The park's sandy soil and scrub pines surround many kettle ponds which are dependent on groundwater and precipitation. The ...
, connecting with the Cape Cod Rail Trail *
Shining Sea Bikeway The Shining Sea Bikeway is a rail trail on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts, United States. The path runs for from the Steamship Authority ferry terminal in Woods Hole to North Falmouth. History The trail was built on the right-of-way of ...
- Woods Hole to North Falmouth * Cape Cod Canal path on both sides of the canal * Various unpaved Mid-Cape trails For long-distance biking, the mostly on-road
Claire Saltonstall Bikeway The Claire Saltonstall Bikeway, also known as the Boston to Cape Cod Bikeway, is a 135-mile bikeway marked as Bike Route 1 that starts on the Charles River Bike Path near Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts and winds along Boston's Emerald ...
connects Cape Cod to the
Charles River Bike Path The Charles River Bike Path is a mixed-use path in the Boston, Massachusetts area. It is named after the cardiologist Paul Dudley White, a prominent advocate of preventive medicine. His research led him to proclaim frequently "''I'd like to put ...
in Boston.


Tourism

Cape Cod has a year-round population of about 220,000, and it experiences a tourist season each summer, the beginning and end of which can be roughly approximated as
Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
and Labor Day, respectively. Many businesses specifically target summer visitors, although the "on season" has been expanding somewhat in recent years due to
Indian Summer An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Several sources describe a true Indian summer as not occurring until after the first frost, or more s ...
, reduced lodging rates, the number of people visiting the Cape after Labor Day who have no school-age children, and the elderly—reducing the true "off season" to six or seven months. In the late 20th century, tourists and owners of second homes began visiting the Cape more and more in the spring and fall, softening the definition of the high season and expanding it somewhat.
Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...
berths the original East Coast
whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins ( cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. 2 ...
fleet (Dolphin Fleet) who patrol the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The fleet guarantee a whale sighting (mostly
humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...
,
fin whale The fin whale (''Balaenoptera physalus''), also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of ce ...
,
minke whale The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish na ...
,
sei whale The sei whale ( , ; ''Balaenoptera borealis'') is a baleen whale, the third-largest rorqual after the blue whale and the fin whale. It inhabits most oceans and adjoining seas, and prefers deep offshore waters. It avoids polar and tropical ...
, and the critically endangered
North Atlantic right whale The North Atlantic right whale (''Eubalaena glacialis'') is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus '' Eubalaena'', all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their s ...
) and is the only federally certified operation qualified to rescue whales. Provincetown has also long been known as an art colony, attracting writers and artists. The town is home to the Cape's most attended art museum, the
Provincetown Art Association and Museum The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) is located at 460 Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is the most attended art museum on Cape Cod. The museum's permanent coll ...
. Cape Cod is a popular destination for beachgoers from all over, with of coastline. Beaches—both public and private—are easily accessible. The Cape has upwards of sixty public beaches, many of which offer parking for non-residents for a daily fee (in summer). The
Cape Cod National Seashore The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includ ...
has of sandy beach and many walking paths. Cape Cod is also popular for its outdoor activities, such as beach walking, biking, boating, fishing, go-karts, golfing, kayaking, miniature golf, and unique shopping. There are 27 public, daily-fee golf courses and 15 private courses on Cape Cod.
Bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...
s or vacation houses are often used for lodging. Each summer, the Naukabout Music Festival is held at the Barnstable County Fair Grounds located in
East Falmouth East Falmouth is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located at the base of Massachusetts' "fishhook" peninsula (''see map at right''). The population was 6,038 at the ...
, typically during the first weekend of August. The festival features local, regional, and national talent, along with food, arts, and family-friendly activities. Some particularly well-known Cape products and industries include
cranberries Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...
,
shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...
(particularly
oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...
s and clams), and lobstering.


Sport fishing

Cape Cod is known around the world as a spring-to-fall destination for sport anglers. Among the species most widely pursued are
striped bass The striped bass (''Morone saxatilis''), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has al ...
,
bluefish The bluefish (''Pomatomus saltatrix'') is the only extant species of the family Pomatomidae. It is a marine pelagic fish found around the world in temperate and subtropical waters, except for the northern Pacific Ocean. Bluefish are known as ta ...
,
bluefin tuna Bluefin tuna is a common name used to refer to several species of tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, th ...
, false albacore (
little tunny The little tunny (''Euthynnus alletteratus''), also known as the false albacore, little tuna, bonita, bonito, or blue bonito, is a species of tuna in the family Scombridae. It can be found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and Blac ...
), bonito,
tautog The tautog (''Tautoga onitis''), also known as the blackfish, is a species of wrasse native to the western Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to South Carolina. This species inhabits hard substrate habitats in inshore waters at depths from . It is ...
,
flounder Flounders are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish, found at the bottom of oceans around the world; some species will also enter estuaries. Taxonomy The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related species, thou ...
and
fluke Fluke may refer to: Biology * Fluke (fish), a species of marine flatfish * Fluke (tail), the lobes of the tail of a cetacean, such as dolphins or whales, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Greek ...
. The Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape, from Sandwich to Provincetown, has numerous harbors, saltwater creeks, and shoals that hold bait fish and attract the larger game fish, such as striped bass, bluefish and bluefin tuna. The outer edge of the Cape, from Provincetown to Falmouth, faces the open Atlantic from Provincetown to Chatham, and then the more protected water of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, from Chatham to Falmouth. The bays, harbors and shoals along this coastline also provide a robust habitat for game species, and during the late summer months warm-water species such as
mahi-mahi The mahi-mahi () or common dolphinfish (''Coryphaena hippurus'') is a surface-dwelling ray-finned fish found in off-shore temperate, tropical, and subtropical waters worldwide. Also widely called dorado (not to be confused with ''Salminus brasi ...
and
marlin Marlins are fish from the family Istiophoridae, which includes about 10 species. A marlin has an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long, rigid dorsal fin which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to deri ...
will also appear on the southern edge of Cape Cod's waters. Nearly every harbor on Cape Cod hosts sport fishing charter boats, which run from May through October. One of the most popular fishing spots on the East Coast is the Cape Cod Canal. Striped bass, especially, in season attract anglers from far and wide. A large part of the attraction involves ease of access. Ample free parking exists all along the waterway, and the banks are a short walk from one's vehicle. This reduces fishing to the basics – a pole and a few lures.


Sports

The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the
Cape Cod Baseball League The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousan ...
. The
Wareham Gatemen The Wareham Gatemen are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Wareham, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Gatemen play their home games at Clem Spillane Fie ...
also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham in Plymouth County. The league's beginning is unsettled, even fanciful. Without any basis whatsoever, some claim a start date of 1875. However, the first Cape Cod League formed in Sandwich in 1910. It did not last. Three years later - in 1913 - another Cape Cod Baseball League organized. This venture lasted two years. In 1916, a third attempt at league play barely got off the ground. Then, in 1923, an initial four teams met in Hyannis and started a successful federation along the lines of the present league. Outstanding players from throughout the region competed until the war effort led to a shutdown in 1940. In 1946, the local town teams from the prewar County Twilight League and Lower Cape Cod League organized under the Cape Cod Baseball League banner. As the years passed, local players were moved aside by outside college stars. Finally, in 1963, the league became a wholly summer collegiate circuit sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association with some Major Leagues financial support. The current teams in the league are the
Bourne Braves The Bourne Braves are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Bourne, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Braves play their home games at Doran Park on the ca ...
,
Brewster Whitecaps The Brewster Whitecaps are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Brewster, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's East Division. The Whitecaps play their home games at Stony Bro ...
,
Chatham Anglers The Chatham Anglers, more commonly referred to as the Chatham A's and formerly the Chatham Athletics, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Chatham, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in t ...
(formerly the Chatham Athletics),
Cotuit Kettleers The Cotuit Kettleers are a collegiate summer baseball team based in the village of Cotuit, Massachusetts, which is in the southwest corner of the town of Barnstable. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the lea ...
,
Falmouth Commodores The Falmouth Commodores are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Commodores play their home games at Arnie Alle ...
,
Harwich Mariners The Harwich Mariners are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Harwich, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's East Division. The Mariners play their home games at Whitehouse Fiel ...
,
Hyannis Harbor Hawks The Hyannis Harbor Hawks, formerly the Hyannis Mets, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Harbor Hawks play ...
(formerly the Hyannis Mets), Orleans Firebirds (formerly the Orleans Cardinals),
Wareham Gatemen The Wareham Gatemen are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Wareham, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's West Division. The Gatemen play their home games at Clem Spillane Fie ...
and the
Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox The Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox, or Y-D Red Sox, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's East Division. The Red Sox play thei ...
. MLB scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future. Along with the
Cape Cod Baseball League The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousan ...
and the new Junior Hockey League team, the Cape Cod Islanders, many high school players are being recruited as well. Barnstable and Harwich have each sent multiple players to Division 1 colleges for baseball. Harwich has also won three state titles since 1996 (1996, 2006, 2007). Bourne and Sandwich, rivals in hockey, have each won state championships recently, Bourne in 2004 and Sandwich in 2007. Nauset, Barnstable, and Martha's Vineyard are also state hockey powerhouses. Barnstable and Falmouth hold the title of having one of the longest Thanksgiving football rivalries in the country. The teams have played each other every year on Thanksgiving since 1895. High school football teams on the Cape have also recently become successful and the region has also become a hot-spot for college recruiting. In 2011, four high school football teams from the Cape won state championships in their respective divisions; Dennis-Yarmouth (Division 2A), Bourne (Division 3A), Mashpee (Division 4), as well as Nantucket and Upper Cape Cod Tech (Division 5). Also, numerous other Cape schools have made appearances in the football state championship game recently, including Barnstable in 2012, Martha's Vineyard in 2008, Cape Cod Tech in 2006, and Dennis-Yarmouth in 2013. The Bourne and Barnstable girls' volleyball teams are two of the best teams in the state and Barnstable is considered one of the best programs in the country. Bourne won the state title in 2003 and 2007, and Barnstable has won 12 Division 1 state titles in the past 13 years and has won the state title the three years in a row (2011–2013). In the 2010 cross country season, Sturgis Charter Public School's Division 4 cross country team remained virtually unbeaten throughout their running season. The end of each summer is marked with the running of the
Falmouth Road Race The Falmouth Road Race is an annual road running, road race on Cape Cod from Woods Hole, a village in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Falmouth Heights. The race organizer is Falmouth Road Race, Inc., a 501(c) organization#501(c)(3), 501( ...
, held on the third Saturday in August. It draws about 10,000 runners to the Cape and showcases the finest runners in the world (mainly for the large purse that the race is able to offer). The race is long, which is a non-standard distance. The reason for the unusual distance is that the man who thought the race up (Tommy Leonard) was a bartender who wanted a race along the coast from one bar (The Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole) to another (The Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights). While the bar in Falmouth Heights is now the British Beer Company, the race still starts at the front door of the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole and now finishes at the beach in Falmouth Heights. Prior to the Falmouth race is an annual race through Brewster called the Brew Run, held early in August.


Education

Most Cape Cod towns have a few elementary schools, one or two middle schools and one large public high school that serves the entire town. Exceptions to this include Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, located in Yarmouth, which serves the two towns in its name;
Monomoy Regional High School Monomoy Regional High School is a regional secondary school located in Harwich, Massachusetts, United States, within Barnstable County. Monomoy Regional High School serves approximately 625 students in grades 8-12 from the towns of Chatham an ...
, located in Harwich and serving that town as well as Chatham; and
Nauset Regional High School Nauset Regional High School is an NEASC accredited high school located in Eastham, Massachusetts, United States and a part of Nauset Public Schools. Nauset is inside the Cape Cod National Seashore, making it the only high school on the East Co ...
in Eastham, which serves the towns of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown.
Bourne High School Bourne High School is a public high school located in Bourne, Massachusetts. History Bourne High School is located about 1 mile west of the famous Bourne Bridge and "Cape Cod" topiary at the Bourne Bridge rotary that welcomes people crossing th ...
serves students in that town, which includes the villages of Sagamore, Sagamore Beach, and Buzzards Bay.
Barnstable High School Barnstable High School is a public high school (grades 8–12) in the village of Hyannis, Massachusetts, United States, Town of Barnstable. The school is part of the Barnstable Public School District. Barnstable High School was founded in the ...
is the Cape's largest. Sturgis Charter Public School, a public school in Hyannis that was featured in ''Newsweek'' magazine's "Best High Schools" ranking, offers the
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...
in their junior and senior year and is open to students from as far away as
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
. The Cape also has two vocational high schools. One is the
Cape Cod Regional Technical High School Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, also known as Cape Tech, Cape Cod Tech, Lower Cape Tech, and sometimes abbreviated as CCT, is a public vocational and technical high school located in Harwich, Massachusetts, United States. Cape Cod Region ...
in Harwich, and the other is
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School (also known as Upper Cape Tech, UCT, or simply Upper Cape) is a public vocational-technical high school located in Bourne, Massachusetts, United States. Opened in 1966, it serves over 720 students in 15 vo ...
in Bourne. In 1976 the Cape schools and districts petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature to create an educational collaborative, the Cape Cod Collaborative, to facilitate cooperation and efficiency in providing gifted and talented, and special needs programs. With locations in Osterville and Bourne the Cape Cod Collaborative provides transportation services, professional development, autism support, developmental training, itinerant services and an alternative education program. Each summer, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, it operates a science-based program for gifted and talented students from around the Cape.
Mashpee High School Mashpee Middle-High School is a public high school located in Mashpee, Massachusetts, United States. It is located at the intersection of Old Barnstable Road and Route 151, has an approximate enrollment of 700 students in grades 7–12 and is the ...
is home to the Mashpee Chapter of SMPTE, the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...
. This chapter is the first and only high school chapter in the world to be a part of this organization and has received much recognition within the Los Angeles broadcasting industry as a result. In addition to public schools, Cape Cod has a wide range of private schools. The town of Barnstable has Trinity Christian Academy,
Cape Cod Academy Cape Cod Academy (CCA) is an independent coed college preparatory school for grades Kindergarten through 12 located in Osterville, Massachusetts. Mission statement "The pursuit of academic excellence and development of life skills in a safe, va ...
, St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, and Saint John Paul II High School. Sandwich offers the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, Harwich offers the Lighthouse Charter School for elementary and middle school students, and Falmouth offers
Falmouth Academy Falmouth Academy is a non-profit, coed, independent, private college-preparatory day school serving students from grades 7–12. It is located in Falmouth, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. History Falmouth Academy was founded in 1977 as a small and ...
.
Riverview School Riverview School is a private boarding/day school for students, ages 11–22, with complex language, learning and cognitive challenges located on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Students hail from every region of the United States and from many foreig ...
is located in East Sandwich and is a special co-ed boarding school which serves students as old as 22 who have learning disabilities. Another specialized school is the
Penikese Island Penikese Island is a island off the coast of Massachusetts, United States, in Buzzards Bay. It is one of the Elizabeth Islands, which make up the town of Gosnold, Massachusetts. Penikese is located near the west end of the Elizabeth island cha ...
School, located in the
Elizabeth Islands The Elizabeth Islands are a chain of small islands extending southwest from the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the United States. They are located at the outer edge of Buzzards Bay, north of Martha's Vineyard, from which they are ...
off southwestern Cape Cod, which serves struggling and troubled teenage boys. Cape Cod contains three institutions of higher education. One is the Cape Cod Community College located in West Barnstable. The second is
Massachusetts Maritime Academy Massachusetts Maritime Academy (Mass Maritime) is a public university in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, focused on maritime-related fields. It was established in 1891 and is the second oldest state maritime academy in the United States. Originall ...
in the village of
Buzzards Bay Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
. Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the oldest continuously operating maritime college in the United States. The third is Bridgewater State University, which opened a satellite campus in South Yarmouth in January 2015. The school will provide 40 undergraduate and graduate courses leading to the completion of bachelor's degree and master's degree programs in Early Childhood Education, Educational Leadership, Secondary Education, Reading, and Special Education. The campus will also offer Certificate Programs in Business and Social Work. Beginning in the Summer 2015, the campus will begin to offer undergraduate credit courses in History.


In popular culture and art

Celebrated naturalist and philosopher
Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
wrote about an 1849 trip along the Cape. His book ''Cape Cod'' was published posthumously in 1865. The Cape Codder cocktail is named after the peninsula; both are notable for
cranberry Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus '' Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species '' Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...
. Cape Cod also generated a distinctive Cape style house and Cape lighthouse. The virtues of Cape Cod are extolled in the song "
Old Cape Cod "Old Cape Cod" is a song written by Claire Rothrock, Milton Yakus and Allan Jeffrey that was published in 1957. The single, as recorded by Patti Page, became a gold record, having sold more than a million copies. Hailed by Cape Cod natives as the " ...
". Artist
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...
owned a summer house in Truro, and painted numerous Cape scenes including ''Corn Hill'' (1930), ''Highland Light, North Truro'' (1930), ''Rich's House'' (1930), ''High Road'' (1931), ''House on Dune Edge'' (1931), ''Cold Storage Plant'' (1933), and ''Cottages at North Truro'' (1936). According to
Cole Porter Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to ...
's song "
Let's Do It Let's Do It may refer to: General * Let's Do It 2008, an environmental cleanup campaign in Estonia ** Let's Do It! World, an international civic movement that originated from the Estonian campaign ** Let's do it! Armenia, an environmental clean ...
," "cold Cape Cod clams 'gainst their wish do it." The band
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson ...
's self-titled LP contains two songs mentioning Cape Cod, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and "Walcott". In 1996, Massachusetts began issuing a "Cape & Islands" specialty
registration plate A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate ( Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificat ...
.


See also

* ''
Mayflower ''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...
'' * Wildfire history of Cape Cod


References


Notes


Sources

*
Geologic History of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
by the
United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...
(USGS)


Further reading

* Cumbler, John T. ''Cape Cod: An Environmental History of a Fragile Ecosystem.'' Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. * Freeman, Frederick. (1860)
''The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of Barnstable County and of Its Several Towns (Vol. 1)''
Harvard University. * Freeman, Frederick. (1862)
''The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of Barnstable County and of Its Several Towns (Vol. 2)''
Harvard University. * LeBlanc, D.R. (1986). ''Ground-water resources of Cape Cod, Massachusetts'' ydrologic Investigations Atlas HA-692 Reston, Va.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. * Massey, A.J., C.S. Carlson, and D.R. LeBlanc. (2006). ''Ground-water levels near the top of the water-table mound, western Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2002–04'' cientific Investigations Report 2006-5054 Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. * Masterson, J.P. and J.W. Portnoy. (2005). ''Potential changes in ground-water flow and their effects on the ecology and water resources of the Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts'' eneral Information Product 13 Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. * Walter, D.A. and A.T. Whealan. (2005). ''Simulated water sources and effects of pumping on surface and ground water, Sagamore and Monomoy flow lenses, Cape Cod, Massachusetts'' cientific Investigations Report 2004-5181 Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. *


External links


Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce"Geologic History of Cape Cod, Massachusetts"
U.S. Geological Survey * {{Authority control Barrier islands of Massachusetts
Cape Cod and the Islands Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
Geology of Massachusetts Cod, Cape Islands of Barnstable County, Massachusetts Moraines of the United States New England Peninsulas of Massachusetts Regions of Massachusetts