Cape Cod - Geography and Political Divisions

Geography and Political Divisions

The elevation of Cape Cod ranges from 306 feet (93 m) at its highest point, at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of the Massachusetts Military Reservation, down to sea level.

Cape Cod Bay lies in between Cape Cod and the mainland – bounded on the north by a horizontal line between Provincetown and Marshfield. North of Cape Cod Bay (and Provincetown) is Massachusetts Bay, which contains the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, located 5 miles (8 km) north of Provincetown. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east of Cape Cod, and to the southwest of the Cape is Buzzards Bay. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; this shortened the trade route between New York and Boston by 62 miles (100 km). To the south of Cape Cod lie Nantucket Sound; Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, both large islands; and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands.

Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 15 towns: Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, Mashpee, Yarmouth, Harwich, Dennis, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown; and Barnstable. Barnstable is governed by an elected Town Council, rather than by an elected Board of Selectmen. Two of the county's fifteen municipalities (Bourne and Sandwich) include land on the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal. Each town contains a number of villages.

In the 17th century the designation "Cape Cod" applied only to the tip of the peninsula, essentially present-day Provincetown. Over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all the land east of the Manomet and Scusset rivers – essentially the line of the 20th century Cape Cod Canal. Now, the complete towns of Bourne and Sandwich are widely considered to incorporate the full perimeter of Cape Cod, even though small parts of these towns are located on the west side of the canal. The canal divides the largest part of the peninsula from the mainland and the resultant landmass is loosely referred to as an island. Some "Cape Codders" – residents of "The Cape" – refer to all land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape."

For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections:

• The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Marine Biological Laboratory 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, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others). Bourne is home to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, in the village of Buzzards Bay, along the canal, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Aptucxet Trading Post, the annual Bourne Scallop Festival 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, Heritage Museums and Gardens, the Sandwich Glass Museum, the Thornton Burgess Museum, the Green Briar Nature Center, a Friends' Meeting House, a U.S. Coast Guard Station, and many quaint inns and motels, restaurants, shops and activities. Mashpee, home of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans, hosts Mashpee Commons, an outdoor shopping mall, with many boutiques, eateries, movie theaters, and offices, as is the newer South Cape Village, a short way south towards Falmouth, along Route 28; it is also home to New Seabury, an upscale residential golf community along Vineyard Sound, South Cape Beach, the Cape Cod Children's Museum, the Boys & Girls Club of Cape Cod, the Indian Meeting House just off Route 151, and a historic one-room school house near Town Hall, on Great Neck Road North.

• The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis (not including Dennis Port). The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, 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, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g. Craigville, Cummaquid, Hyannis Port, Santuit, Wianno, and others). The villages of Yarmouth are South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouth Port. There are five villages in Dennis, including North Dennis, East Dennis, and South Dennis. Dennis Port is considered to be a Lower Cape area.

• Lower Cape traditionally included all of the rest of the Cape, or the towns of Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Dennis Port, a village of Dennis, is said to be a part of the Lower Cape. The Lower Cape area includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, a national park comprising much of the outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast, and is home to some of the most popular beaches in the United States, such as Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach", named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in America for 2007.