Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA

Middlesex County is a geographic county in northeastern Massachusetts, extending from the densely urbanized communities immediately north and west of Boston to the Merrimack Valley and the New Hampshire border. It includes Cambridge, Lowell, Somerville, Newton, Framingham, Waltham, Malden, Medford and dozens of suburban and rural towns, encompassing major educational and technology centers around Cambridge and Route 128 as well as historic landscapes such as Concord, Lexington, Walden Pond and the former textile-manufacturing center of Lowell. The county is crossed by the Charles, Concord, Sudbury, Assabet, Nashua and Merrimack river systems and contains a varied landscape of urban neighborhoods, wooded suburbs, wetlands, reservoirs and agricultural land. Middlesex County had 1,632,002 residents at the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Massachusetts and New England. Although it remains a recognized census, judicial and geographic county, its general-purpose county government was abolished in 1997, with most former county responsibilities transferred to the Commonwealth; Cambridge and Lowell continue to be identified historically as its two shire towns.