Massachusetts Geospatial Strategy
Learn more about this initiative to help guide our activities through the end of the decade.
New 4/15/2024: Read the workshop summary documentation.
New MassGIS Data Hub
MassGIS is proud to announce the formal launch of the MassGIS Data Hub!
Our vision for this open data portal is that it will serve as a "front door" where users can go to search for public, authoritative geospatial data services from MassGIS and other organizations across the Commonwealth. Anyone can search the Hub for data of interest by entering keywords, or by browsing featured content or data categories. The Hub features options for viewing the items in maps and downloading the data in several formats.
The site searches MassGIS's ArcGIS Online organization for map, feature, image, and tile services, along with web maps, applications, and dashboards. We've also added items from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and MassDOT.
We’d like to include your data too!
To make the Hub as useful as possible to the GIS user community, we extend an invitation to any organizations that would like their ArcGIS Online-based authoritative data to be discoverable in the MassGIS Data Hub. For us to consider your data for inclusion, you would need to create an ArcGIS Online Open Data group and publicly share it with Everyone. Include metadata and plenty of good keywords on the item details pages of your services for best results. Then, send Michael Trust the name of the group and he will review it. If included, users who search our Hub will be able to find your ArcGIS Online data and apps. Also, if you want our items discoverable in your Hubs, email Michael for the groups you would need to add to your Groups Manager.
Meet the new MassGIS Director and State GIO, and view Cy's GIS Day 2023 videos
Our new Director, Cy Smith, (who is also the state's first Geographic Information Officer) has arrived and is immersing himself in all things Massachusetts GIS. Welcome Cy!
To commemorate GIS day in 2023, MassGIS created a series of 5 videos that were published to social media. The purpose of the videos was to introduce the MassGIS Director, illuminate the importance of the hidden infrastructure of Geographic Information Systems, and to highlight some current and future uses of GIS.
Maps and apps
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Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Resources Viewer: View resources across MA for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence
This webapp was created by MassGIS for the Governor’s Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. It contains housing support, rape crisis centers, hospitals with a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program, and District Attorney's offices. It also contains the Filter and Near Me widgets to help survivors find facilities relevant to them.
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Statewide Property Sales Viewer: View property sales from the past fiscal year across the state
The Statewide Property Sales Viewer maps real estate sales assembled by the State's Bureau of Local Assessment (part of the Division of Local Services). The source is the annual "LA3" sales reports provided by municipal assessors. On the Division of Local Services website, these sales can be searched by property type, range of sale date or price, and other characteristics. You can download the search results. This MassGIS sales viewer application supports the same search criteria and then maps the result, color coding the sales based on their assessment-to-sale ratio. You can also still see and download the tabular result.
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MassGIS Imagery Time Series: 30 years of Massachusetts orthophotos.
This app explains our ortho imagery acquisitions through the years and allows you to explore the various vintages in one location, from the black and white imagery of the 1990s to the 2019 high-resolution color imagery program.
News
Governor Healey proclaimed November 15, 2023, as GIS Day. See the proclamation.
GISette Newsletter
The "GISette" is MassGIS' bi-monthly Newsletter. It features news, data updates, event information, and more.
Read our latest GISette and sign up to receive them by email.
Data updates
- MHC Historic Inventory
April 10, 2024 - Massachusetts Historical Commission staff have completed a significant update to data in Dedham, Dennis, Falmouth, and Woburn, and reviewed and corrected data for some of the first towns to be digitized: Andover and Blackstone; updates are in progress for Bridgewater, Middleborough, New Bedford, Randolph, and Westport. - MassDEP Major Facilities
March 29, 2024 - MassDEP has an updated release of Major Facilities data. - Non-Potential Drinking Water Source Areas
March 29, 2024 - MassDEP added one polygon and expanded another in Agawam. - MassDEP data layer (uploaded on 3/27/24):
Up to date as of March 26, 2023 - Groundwater Discharge Permits
- Property Tax Parcels
March 27, 2024 - 26 municipalities: Athol, Avon, Braintree, Dalton, Easthampton, Erving, Freetown, Hamilton, Ipswich, Leominster (FY value updated from '2023' to '2024' in Assess table from March 6, 2024 update), Longmeadow, Malden, Medfield, Mendon, Northfield, Peabody, Sandisfield, Sheffield, South Hadley, Southampton, Sunderland, Wales, Wayland, Wellfleet, Westfield, and Yarmouth. - ZIP Codes (5-Digit) from HERE (Navteq)
March 25, 2024 - MassGIS modified the boundaries for all ZIP Code areas in Boston based on the U.S. Postal Service's ZIP Code Look Up by Address website. MassGIS also added polygons for ZIP Codes 02199 and 02203. - MassDEP data layers (uploaded on 3/20/2024):
Up to date as of March 19, 2024 - MassDEP Tier Classified Oil and/or Hazardous Material Sites (MGL c. 21E) and MassDEP Oil and/or Hazardous Material Sites with Activity and Use Limitations (AUL)
- Office of Fishing and Boating Access Sites
March 8, 2024 - Latest update from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game includes adjusting the locations of a few sites. In November 2023 the RAMPTYPE field was consolidated to 4 values, including "N/A" being recalculated to "OTHER." - MOTT Regions
March 6, 2024 - Two new data layers developed from maps sent by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism: - Colleges and Universities
March 5, 2024 - Extensive update based on data downloaded from the National Center for Education Statistics (as of November 21, 2023) and data sent by the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Division of Professional Licensure (last updated in August 2023). - Long Term Care Residences
March 1, 2024 - Extensive update based on data sent by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) and Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs as of Winter 2024. - MassDEP Water Quality Monitoring Stations
February 29, 2024 - The categories of features include updates through 2022. - Protected and Recreational Open Space
February 16, 2024 - Energy and Environmental Affairs GIS staff have updated the Protected and Recreational OpenSpace layers (arcs and polygons), available from MassGIS. Since the last publication to the web, staff at EEA and its associated agencies performed edits that improved the boundaries and/or descriptive geography to over 800 polygons in 123 municipalities.
New shapefile and file geodatabase downloads represent data updated as of 2/7/2024.
The details:- Added or improved the boundaries of many types of open spaces: 172 conservation areas,16 water supply lands (both state and local)/watershed restrictions,18 cemeteries, 52 agricultural preservation restrictions (all types)/community gardens, 21 parks/beaches/rail trails, 44 conservation restrictions/easements, 5 golf courses, and 6 school playgrounds/athletic fields, resulting in a net gain of nearly 160 acres in the database.
- With the recent updates, we've now surpassed 1.4 million acres of permanently protected open space as digitized!
- 2021 Legislative Boundaries Updated
February 8, 2024 - Polygon attributes were updated to reflect recent member changes to these layers: - Bedrock Altitude and Overburden Thickness and NEHRP Soil Classifications
February 6, 2024 - This new set of data layers was part of the Massachusetts Depth to Bedrock Project, performed by the Mass. Geological Survey, Dept. of Earth, Geographic and Climate Science, UMass Amherst, and sponsored by the MassDOT Office of Transportation Planning. - MassDEP data layers
January 16, 2024 - Updates to the Public Water Supply Sources and Wellhead Protection Areas data, current as of 1/11/2024. - MassGIS-MassDOT Roads
December 13, 2023 - Latest update and new name for this hybrid layer combining linework from MassDOT's Road Inventory and MassGIS' "base" streets maintained as part of the NextGen 911-MAD workflow. - Building Structures
November 14, 2023 - Updated with edits compiled atop spring 2021 imagery. - Hiking Trails for NextGen 911
November 14, 2023 - This data layer of trails across Massachusetts contains mostly those found in wilderness areas and used for hiking and was developed to assist telecommunicators with lost hikers and potentially respond to emergencies in remote areas. First published in January 2023, the layer was recently updated with tens of thousands of lines sourced from OpenStreetMap. - Trains
November 14, 2023 - MassGIS: removed the points for the closed Commuter Rail stations Plymouth, Plimptonville, Silver Hill, Hastings, Prides Crossing and Mishawum; removed the Plymouth spur on the Kingston Commuter Rail line; added points for the Oak Grove and Pawtucket/Central Falls Commuter Rail stations.
October 3, 2023 - Update to the Commuter Rail Stops (TRAINS_NODE) layer: corrected the location of the Manchester Commuter Rail stop in Manchester-by-the-Sea. ALso edited attributes to the
- 2022 Wards and Precincts
November 7, 2023 - Updated to merge the area of subprecinct 3A in precinct 3 in Groton into precinct 1 based on a legislative change. - Subprecincts (2022)
November 3, 2023 - Subprecincts represent areas within individual precincts that have been assigned to a State and/or Congressional voting district that is different than those assigned to other areas within that same precinct. - Schools (Pre-K through High School)
October 27, 2023 - Update based on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) school profiles database as of October 16, 2023. - Geographic Place Names
October 13, 2023 - Updated the Hypso feature classes to remove a label off Cape Cod. - Community Preservation Act (CPA) Projects
August 15, 2023 - New shapefile available for download reflecting the current status. - FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer
July 27, 2023 - The latest update includes data published by FEMA as of July 2, 2023 (Latest Study Effective Date = 6/21/2023; Latest LOMR Effective Date = 11/28/2022). - Farmers' Markets
July 26, 2023 - The Department of Agricultural Resources has provided an update to the statewide Farmers' Markets. The data lists locations, hours of operation, EBT inclusion and many other fields. - Bicycle Trails
June 22, 2023 - This data set replaces the 2004 layer of bicycle facilities in Massachusetts. It consists of four facility types: shared use paths, bike lanes, separated bike lanes and bicycle/pedestrian priority roadways. The inventory is primarily from MassDOT's 2020 dataset and includes all state-owned infrastructure as well as facilities under local jurisdiction. Linework has been adjusted in some places to be more accurate based on DCR Trails, Open Street Map, and MassGIS 2021 Orthoimagery. - MassDEP data layers
Up to date as of May 5, 2023:
Surface Water Supply Watersheds and Surface Water Supply Protection Areas (Zone A, B, C). - Massachusetts Geographic Response Strategies
April 21, 2023 - New layers from MassDEP. A Geographic Response Strategy (GRS) is a planning document and response tool intended to guide local responders during the first 24 to 48 hours of a major coastal oil spill until professional contracted oil spill response personnel and additional resources supplied by Unified Command can arrive. These replace the Geographic Response Plan (GRP) data from MassDEP. - Massachusetts Commission for the Blind (MCB) Regions
April 11, 2023 - The MCB has 6 regions composed of groupings of municipalities. MassGIS has created this regions layer with contact information for each region. - Limited Access Highway Exits and Interchanges
March 27, 2023 - New and revised data representing off-ramps and junctions on limited access highways, based on data from MassDOT. - MassDEP Mouth of River (MOR) Lines
February 2, 2023 - This new data layer contains the Mouth of River (MOR) lines for Massachusetts coastal rivers originally published by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) on March 1, 2005, as PDF maps. - Diadromous Fish
February 2, 2023 - Five new data layers of diadromous fish passageways, impediments, habitat, species presence and sampling stations along coastal rivers and in lakes and ponds. Diadromous fish species travel between salt water and fresh water as part of their life cycle. - Community Preservation Act (CPA) Towns
January 18, 2023 - MassGIS updated the status of several towns to reflect recent elections that approved the adoption of the CPA. A new layer file that shows year of adoption is now included in the download. - 2021 Legislative and Administrative Boundaries
January 13, 2023 - These district boundaries for Massachusetts, signed into law in November 2021, now have member names populated with the results of the November 2022 election, and revised coastlines to match the 2020 Census data: