Cambridge, Massachusetts (map) is a city in the Greater Boston
area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of
the University of Cambridge in England. Cambridge is most famous
for two prominent iversities, Harvard University and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of the 2000 census,
the city population was 101,355. It is the fifth most populous
city in the state. The site for what would become Cambridge was
chosen in December 1630, and the first houses were built in the
spring of 1631. The settlement was initially referred to as “the
newe towne”. Official Massachusetts records show the name
capitalized as Newe Towne by 1632. Located at the first
convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newe Towne was
one of a number of towns (including Boston, Dorchester,
Watertown, and Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan
colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under governor John
Winthrop. The original village site is in the heart of today’s
Harvard Square. The marketplace where