Greater Boston : Ask Biography

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Greater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston. Due to ambiguity in usage, the size of the area referred to can be anywhere between that of the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of Boston and that of the city's combined statistical area (CSA) which includes the metro areas of Providence, Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts.

By contrast, Metro Boston is usually reserved to signify the "inner core" surrounding the City of Boston, while "Greater Boston" usually at least overlaps the North and South Shores, as well as MetroWest and the Merrimack Valley.

Greater Boston is tenth in population among U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in the United States, home to over 4.6 million people as of the 2010 U.S. Census and is ranked fifth among CSA's, having over 7.6 million people.

Greater Boston has many sites and people significant to American history and culture, particularly the American Revolution, civil rights, literature, and politics, and is one of the nation's centers of education, finance, industry, and tourism, with the sixth-largest Gross metropolitan product in the country and 12th-largest in the world.