{{infobox university |name

Boston University |native_name |image_name Boston University seal.svg |image_size 200px |caption Seal of Boston University |latin_name Universitas Bostoniensis |motto Learning, Virtue, Piety |mottoeng |established 1839 |closed |affiliation The United Methodist Church |type Private |endowment US$ 1.02 billion |officer_in_charge |president Robert A. Brown |vice-president |provost Jean Morrison |head_label |head |faculty 3,931 |staff 7,410 (including faculty) |students 31,766 |undergrad 18,534 |postgrad 13,232 |doctoral |city Boston |state Massachusetts |country United States |campus Urban |former_names |free_label |free |sports |colors scarlet and white |nickname Terriers |mascot Rhett the Boston Terrier |athletics NCAA Division I |affiliations New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business |website bu.edu |publictransit BU Central MBTA station, BU East MBTA station, BU West MBTA station |logo |footnotes }}

Boston University (BU) is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers. The university is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

BU is categorized as an RU/VH Research University (very high research activity) in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. In 2009–2010, BU had research expenditures of $407.8 million, or $553 million if the research led by the Medical School faculty at Boston Medical Center is included. BU is a member of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education.

Among its faculty and alumni, BU counts 6 Nobel Prize winners, including Martin Luther King, Jr. (Ph.D. '55); 22 Pulitzer Prize winners, and numerous Guggenheim and MacArthur fellows.

The university offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees, and medical and dental degrees through 18 schools and colleges on two urban campuses. The main campus is situated along the Charles River in Boston's Fenway-Kenmore and Allston neighborhoods, while the Boston University Medical Campus is in Boston's South End neighborhood. BU also operates 75 study abroad programs in over 33 cities in over 20 countries and has internship opportunities in 10 different countries (including the United States and abroad).

The Boston University Terriers compete in the NCAA's Division I. BU athletic teams compete in the America East, Hockey East, and Colonial Athletic Association conferences, and their mascot is Rhett the Boston Terrier. Boston University is well known for men's hockey, in which it has won five national championships, most recently in 2009.

History

+Presidents of Boston University
William Fairfield Warren	1873–1903
William Edwards Huntington	William E. Huntington	1904–1911
Lemuel H. Murlin	1911–1924
Edwin Holt Hughes (acting)	May–Sep 1923
	William F. Anderson (acting)	1925–1926
Daniel L. Marsh	1926–1950
Harold C. Case	1950–1967
Arland Christ-Janer	1967–1970
	Calvin B.T. Lee (acting)	1970
John Silber	1971–1996
Jon Westling	1996–2003
John Silber	2003–2004
Aram Chobanian	2004–2006
Robert A. Brown	2006 – present

Predecessor institutions and University Charter

Boston University traces its roots to the establishment of the Newbury Biblical Institute in Newbury, Vermont in 1839, and was chartered with the name "Boston University" by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1869. The University organized formal Centennial observances both in 1939 and 1969.

On 24–25 April 1839 a group of Methodist ministers and laymen at the Old Bromfield Street Church in Boston elected to establish a Methodist theological school. Set up in Newbury, Vermont, the school was named the Newbury Biblical Institute.

In 1847, the Congregational Society in Concord, New Hampshire, invited the Institute to relocate to Concord and made available a disused Congregational church building with a capacity of 1200 people. Other citizens of Concord covered the remodeling costs. One stipulation of the invitation was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter issued by New Hampshire designated the school the "Methodist General Biblical Institute", but it was commonly called the "Concord Biblical Institute."

With the agreed twenty years coming to a close, the Trustees of the Concord Biblical Institute purchased on Aspinwall Hill in Brookline, Massachusetts as a possible relocation site. The Institute moved in 1867 to 23 Pinkney Street in Boston and received a Massachusetts Charter as the "Boston Theological Institute."

In 1869, three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute obtained from the Massachusetts Legislature a charter for a university by name of "Boston University." These three were successful Boston businessmen and Methodist laymen, with a history of involvement in educational enterprises and became the Founders of Boston University. They were Isaac Rich (1801–1872), Lee Claflin (1791–1871), and Jacob Sleeper (1802–1889), for whom Boston University's three West Campus dormitories are named. Lee Claflin's son, William, was then Governor of Massachusetts and signed the University Charter on 26 May 1869 after it was passed by the Legislature.

As reported by Kathleen Kilgore in her book, "Transformations, A History of Boston University" (see Further Reading), the Founders directed the inclusion in the Charter of the following provision, unusual for its time:

:No instructor in said University shall ever be required by the Trustees to profess any particular religious opinions as a test of office, and no student shall be refused admission . . . on account of the religious opinions he may entertain; provided, nonetheless, that this section shall not apply to the theological department of said University.

Every department of the new university was also open to all on an equal footing regardless of sex, race, or (with the exception of the School of Theology) religion.

Early years (1870–1900)

The Boston Theological Institute was absorbed into Boston University in 1871 as the BU School of Theology.

In January 1872 Isaac Rich died, leaving the vast bulk of his estate to a trust that would go to Boston University after ten years of growth while the University was organized. Most of this bequest consisted of real estate throughout the core of the city of Boston and was appraised at more than $1.5 million. Kilgore describes this as the largest single donation to an American college or university to that time.

By December, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 had destroyed all but one of the buildings Rich had left to the University, and the insurance companies with which they had been insured were bankrupt. The value of his estate, when turned over to the University in 1882, was half what it had been in 1872. As a result, the University was unable to build its contemplated campus on Aspinwall Hill and the land was sold piecemeal as development sites. Street names in the area, including Claflin Road, Claflin Path, and University Road, are the only remaining evidence of University ownership in this area.

Boston University established its facilities in buildings scattered through the less fashionable parts of Beacon Hill, and later expanded into the Boylston Street and Copley Square area before building the Charles River Campus after 1937.

20th century and establishment of the Charles River campus

Seeking to unify a geographically scattered school and enable it to participate in the development of the city, school president Lemuel Murlin arranged that the school buy the present campus along the Charles River. Between 1920 and 1928, the school bought the of land that had been reclaimed from the river by the Riverfront Improvement Association. Plans for a riverside quadrangle with a multistory administrative tower modeled on the "Old Boston Stump" in Boston, England were scaled back in the late 1920s when the State Metropolitan District Commission used eminent domain to seize riverfront land for Storrow Drive. Through a series of fundraising campaigns by Murlin, the school slowly filled in its new campus. By spring 1936, the student body included 10,384 men and women.

In 1951, Harold Case became the school's fifth president and under his direction the character of the campus changed dramatically, as he sought to transform the school into a national research university. The campus tripled in size to , and added 68 new buildings before Case retired in 1967. The first large dorms, Claflin, Rich and Sleeper Halls in West Campus were built, and in 1965 construction began on 700 Commonwealth Avenue, later named Warren Towers, designed to house 1800 students. Between 1961 and 1966, the BU Law Tower, the George Sherman Union, and the Mugar Memorial Library were constructed in the Brutalist style, a departure from the school's traditional architecture. The College of Engineering and College of Communication were housed in a former stable building and auto-show room, respectively. Besides his efforts to expand the sleepy riverside university into a rival for Greater Boston's more prestigious academic institutions, such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (both in Cambridge across the Charles River from the B.U. campus), Case involved himself in the start of the student/societal upheavals that came to charazcterize the 1960s. When a minisquabble over editorial policy at College radio WBUR-FM - whose offices were under a tall radio antenna mast in front of the School of Public Relations and Communications (later College of Communications) - started growing in the spring of 1964, Case persuaded university trustees that the university should take over the widely heard radio station (now a major outlet for National Public Radio and still a B.U.-owned broadcast facility). The trustees okayed the firing of the student managers and clamped down on programming and editorial policy, which had been led by the late Jim Thistle, later a major force in Boston's broadcast news milieu. The oncampus political dispute between Case's conservative administration and the suddenly active and mostly liberal student body led to other disputes over B.U. student print publications, such as the B.U. News and the Scarlet, a fraternity association newspaper.

The Presidency of John Silber also saw much expansion. In the late 1970s, the Lahey Clinic vacated its building at 605 Commonwealth Avenue and moved to Burlington, Massachusetts. The vacated building was purchased by BU to house the School of Education. Then in the late 90s, concerns over lack of a "campusy" feel and the physical divide between the east and the western portion of campus triggered another wave of development. The John Hancock Student Village or StuVi was constructed with the intent of unifying the two campuses. This facility includes a new Fitness and Recreation Center (FitRec), a large multipurpose arena, and three new dormitories, one of which opened in 2000, the other two were finished by fall of 2009, including a 26-story new tallest on-campus building (left). The 19 and 26-story towers, known as StuV-II, house another 960 students, and have made possible the guarantee of on-campus housing to the 80% of its 16,000 undergrads who opt for it, without shunting overflow into nearby hotels as was the practice in past years.

In addition to the John Hancock Student Village, other projects were also completed under Silber. These projects range from the construction of the Photonics Center for the study of light, to the construction of the Life Science and Engineering Building for interdisciplinary research, to the renovation of 928 Commonwealth Ave in order to create a permanent home for the School of Hospitality Administration (SHA), were complete under Silber.

The 21st century

thumb|right|300px|The three 1960s dorms of West Campus on the right are dwarfed by the 26-story tower of 2009, one of three dorms in StuVi.Dr. Robert Brown's presidency, which started in 2005, will seek to further the consolidation of campus infrastructure that was commenced by Case and continued by Silber. In particular, Brown has committed Boston University to investing $1.8 billion in the fulfillment of its 10-year strategic plan, devoting new resources to unlocking cross-college opportunities for undergraduates, improving the campus’s academic and residential facilities, and recruiting new faculty for the University’s largest college. The strategy, titled "Choosing to Be Great," sets goals to be carried out over the next decade, and calls for increasing annual expenditures of up to $225 million for support of the plan’s major goals.

The cornerstone of the plan, which calls for more campuswide collaboration, is a focus on undergraduate education, starting with an effort to encourage cross-registration among schools and colleges and to encourage undergraduate students to take full advantage of both the liberal arts and the professional programs available. In an attempt to strengthen the liberal arts, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences are slated to hire 100 new tenure-track faculty members over the next decade. In addition, interdisciplinary research that spans traditional branches of study has also been identified as a current strength with room for growth. Andrei Ruckenstein, a CAS professor of physics and the newly appointed associate provost and vice president of research, is working with the faculty to identify BU’s current strengths in cross-disciplinary research and to drive the hiring of up to 30 new faculty members to help grow these activities across the University.

Several of the University’s professional schools have also been targeted as current strengths and candidates for growth. The School of Management will hire 20 new faculty. The School of Law will begin its capital campaign for an expanded and fully renovated facility, with a dollar-for-dollar match in funding from the University. The College of Fine Arts, long recognized for integrating its undergraduate and graduate programs with respected arts institutions throughout greater Boston, also has plans for facilities renovation and expansion, with the same financial commitment from the University.

The School of Medicine also is poised for growth. Already with a national reputation in medical education, clinical practice, and research, the school is moving to expand its research efforts, especially in select areas of emphasis. The School of Medicine will also devote substantial resources towards facilities renovation and the development of more affordable student housing.

Initiatives focusing on life outside the classroom are considered key to the plan’s success, and efforts to engage both current students and alumni have already begun. The ongoing construction of the Student Village 2 residence hall is part of a long-range expansion campaign that includes renovations to housing, recreational facilities, and dining halls and a focus on leveraging this commitment to strengthen the campus community. In order to accommodate this physical expansion, Boston University has declared intentions to procure air rights over the Mass Pike. In addition to freeing up land, it's hoped the move will unify the Charles River area with South Campus, as well as bring width to a long narrow campus.

Initiatives intended to carry out the plan have already begun. In the Fall of 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, $2.5 million revamp of BU's computer services took place. The initiative involved a complete renovation of Mugar Library’s first floor, the purchase of 200 energy-efficient ThinClient workstations, and the relocation of the computer lab and IT Help Center from 111 Cummington St. Several thousand books were moved to make way for the computer clusters, a shift that reflects changes in the way students and faculty use and exchange information, says Hudson. This new hub of study and interaction on campus, aptly named BU Common @ Mugar, includes an IT Help Center that occupies the wall that formerly displayed books by BU authors, as well as a reference desk, where students can seek professional help. In addition, 888 Commonwealth Ave. has become Boston University’s first geothermal building. It currently houses the Kidney Center, the University’s Center for English Language and Orientation Programs classrooms, the International Programs offices, and several retail shops and restaurants. Last but not least, the University is planning to build a six-story, structure housing state-of-the-art dining services and a new home for an expanded Career Services Center and the Educational Resource Center (ERC), as well as the Writing Program, Freshman Advising, and Professional Advising offices from the College of Arts & Sciences. Construction of the estimated $50 million East Campus Center for Student Services began in Fall 2010, with an opening date set for fall 2012.

Campus

Boston campuses and facilities

The University's main Charles River Campus follows Commonwealth Avenue and the Green Line, beginning near Kenmore Square and continuing for over a mile and a half to its end near the border of Boston's Allston neighborhood. The Boston University Bridge over the Charles River into Cambridge represents the dividing line between Main Campus, where most schools and classroom buildings are concentrated, and West Campus, home to several athletic facilities and playing fields, the large West Campus dorm, and the new John Hancock Student Village complex.

thumb|left|The School of Law Tower, made in [[Brutalism|Brutalist styling, is the tallest academic building on campus.|180px]]As a result of its continual expansion, the Charles River campus contains an array of architecturally diverse buildings. The College of Arts and Sciences, Marsh Chapel (site of the Marsh Chapel Experiment), and the School of Theology buildings are the university's most recognizable and were built in the late-1930s and 1940s in collegiate gothic style. A sizable amount of the campus is traditional Boston brownstone, especially at Bay State Road and South Campus where BU has acquired almost every townhouse those areas offer. The buildings are primarily dormitories but many also serve as various institutes as well as department offices. From the 1960s–1980s many contemporary buildings were constructed including the Mugar Library, BU Law School and Warren Towers, all of which were built in the brutalist style of architecture. The Metcalf Science Center for Science and Engineering, constructed in 1983, might more accurately be described as Structural Expressionism. Morse Auditorium, adjacent, stands in stark architectrual contrast, as it was constructed as a Jewish temple. The most recent additions to BU's campus are the Photonics Center, Life Science and Engineering Building, The Student Village (which includes the FitRec Center and Agganis Arena), and the School of Management. All these buildings were built in brick, a few with a substantial amount of brownstone.

Student housing

Boston University's housing system is the nation's 10th largest among four year colleges. BU was originally a commuter school, but the university now guarantees the option of on-campus housing for four years for all undergraduate students. Currently, 76% of the undergraduate population lives on campus. Boston University requires that all students living in dormitories be enrolled in a year-long meal plan with several combinations of meals and dining points which can be used as cash in on-campus facilities.

Housing at BU is an unusually diverse melange, ranging from individual 19th-century brownstone town houses and apartment buildings acquired by the school to large-scale high-rises built in the 60s and 2000s.

The large dormitories include the 1800-student Warren Towers, the largest on campus, as well as West Campus and The Towers. The smaller dormitory and apartment style housing are mainly located in two parts of campus: Bay State Road and the South Campus residential area. Bay State Road is a tree-lined street that runs parallel to Commonwealth Avenue and is home to the majority of BUs town houses, often called "brownstones". South Campus is a student residential area south of Commonwealth Avenue and separated from the main campus by the Massachusetts Turnpike. Some of the larger buildings in that area have been converted into dormitories, while the rest of the South Campus buildings are apartments.

thumb|left|Built in 1925 as Myles Standish Hotel, BU acquired and converted the building to dorm space in 1949.Boston University's newest residence and principal apartment-style housing area is officially called 33 Harry Agganis Way, StuVi2 unofficially, and is part of The John Hancock Student Village project. The north facing, 26 story building are apartment style while the south facing, 19 story building are in a 8-bedroom dormitory style suite. Total, the building houses 960 resident.

Aside from these main residential areas, smaller residential dormitories are scattered along Commonwealth Avenue.

Boston University also provides specialty houses or specialty floors to students who have particular interests.

All large dormitories have 24/7 security and require all students to swipe and show their school identification before entering.

At least one dorm, Shelton Hall, is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill lived in what was originally room 401 (now 419) while the building was a residential hotel. He died in a hospital on November 27, 1953, and his ghost is rumored to haunt both the room and the floor. The fourth floor is now a specialty floor called the Writers' Corridor.

John Hancock Student Village

The Student Village is a large new residential and recreational complex covering between Buick Street and Nickerson Field, ground formerly occupied by a National Guard Armory, which had been used by the University for indoor track and field and as a storage facility before its demolition and the start of construction. The Student Village was designed with the intention of fostering community and bridging the divide between the eastern and western portions of campus. The dormitory of apartment suites at 10 Buick Street (often abbreviated to "StuVi" by students) opened to juniors and seniors in the fall of 2000. In 2002, John Hancock Insurance announced its sponsorship of the multi-million dollar project. In 2009, Student Village II, the 26 story luxury dorm opened at 33 Harry Agganis Way.

The Agganis Arena, named after Harry Agganis, was opened to concerts and hockey games in January 2005. The Agganis Arena is capable of housing 6,224 spectators for Terrier hockey games, replacing the smaller Walter Brown Arena. It can also be used for concerts and shows. In March 2005, the final element of phase II of the Student Village complex, the Fitness and Recreation (FitRec) Center, was opened, drawing large crowds from the student body. Construction on the rest of phase II, which included 19- and 26-story residential towers was finished in fall 2009.

Other facilities

The Mugar Memorial Library is the central academic library for the Charles River Campus. It also houses the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, formerly called the Twentieth Century Archive, where documents belonging to thousands of eminent figures in literature, journalism, diplomacy, the arts, and other fields are housed. Among them are Isaac Asimov's personal papers from 1965 onward, documents from distinguished alumnus Martin Luther King Jr, and the recent addition of Mary Louise Parker's personal papers.

The George Sherman Union (GSU) located next to Mugar Memorial Library provides students with an expansive food court featuring many popular fast-food chains, including Panda Express (which opened Fall 2006), Starbucks and Jamba Juice. The GSU also provides comfortable lounge areas in which to study. The basement of the George Sherman Union is home to the BU Central lounge, which hosts concerts and other activities and events. There is also a United States Post Office in the basement of the GSU.

left|thumb|200px|"The Castle" located on Bay State Road. "The Castle" located on the West end of Bay State Road is one of the older buildings on campus, and one with an interesting, if not exactly accurate, history. According to lore, the castle was built by millionaire William Lindsay for his daughter Leslie Lindsey Mason as her wedding gift. However, she was killed when her ship, the ''RMS Lusitania'', was torpedoed and sunk by German submarines on May 7, 1915. In fact the building was commissioned by William Lindsay for his own use in 1905, long before his daughter's honeymoon on the Lusitania. In 1939, the University acquired the property by agreement with the city to repay all back taxes owed; these funds were raised through donations from, among others, Dr. William Chenery, a University Trustee. It served as the residence of the University president until 1967, when President Christ-Janer found it too large for his needs as a residence and turned it to other uses. It is now a conference space. Underneath the Castle is the BU Pub, the only BU-operated drinking establishment on campus.

Parts of the 2008 film 21 were filmed at The Castle after undisclosed legal reasons prevented Robert Luketic from filming at MIT. Other areas around the Boston University campus, including BU's School of Management, Mugar Library and FitRec, also provided production locations for the film.

Boston University School of Education located at 605 Commonwealth Avenue is housed in the original location of the Lahey Clinic. It was the merger of two pre-existing buildings, which explains its half floors (3½, 4½, 5½, etc.).

The recently opened Florence and Chafetz Hillel House on Bay State Road is the Hillel facility for the university. With four floors and a basement, the facility includes lounges, study rooms and a kosher dining hall, open during the academic year (including Passover) to students and walk-ins from the community. The first floor also includes the Granby St.Cafe as well as TV's and ping-pong, pool and foosball tables. The Hillel serves as a focal point for BU's large and active Jewish community. It hosts approximately 30 student groups, including social, cultural and religious groups and BU Students for Israel (BUSI), Holocaust Education and the Center for Jewish Learning and Experience. It hosts a plethora of programs and speakers as well as Friday and Saturday shabbat services and meals.

Weld House, the office of the president of Boston University, is the former home of Charles Goddard Weld, a member of the wealthy Weld family of Massachusetts. The adjoining Dunn House contains the Office of the Chancellor.

Barnes and Noble at Boston University is the university's bookstore, which is located on Kenmore Square. Consisting of five floors the bookstore holds all BU students' needs ranging from books to clothes to coffee. Materials for others schools such as the Boston Architecture Center are also sold through the store.

Cultural life

Located at the junction of Fenway-Kenmore, Allston, and Brookline, the university has long enjoyed these neighborhood's cultural offerings. In the Fenway-Kenmore area are the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Landsdowne Street. Allston has been Boston's largest bohemian neighborhood since the 1960s. Nicknamed "Allston Rock City," the neighborhood is home to many artists and musicians, as well as a variety of cafés, and many of Boston's small music halls. Beyond the southern border of the campus in Brookline, Harvard Avenue offers independent and foreign films at Coolidge Corner Theatre, and readings by esteemed authors at the Brookline Booksmith. Other local destinations for campus intellectuals and culture lovers include Symphony Hall, the Beacon Book Annex, Jordan Hall, the main branch of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, the art and commerce of Newbury Street, and, across the river, the museums, shops, and galleries in Harvard Square and elsewhere in Cambridge. The combined proximity of so many cultural institutions, colleges, public spaces, and performance outlets, with the University's own College of Fine Arts, College of Communication, University Professors Program, and other on-campus sources for cultural energy, has enabled BU to cultivate a thriving creative community. The George Sherman Student Union on Commonwealth Avenue hosts concerts and performers at "BU Central" and Metcalf Hall. BU is home to the Huntington Theatre Company at the BU Theatre as well as Boston Playwrights' Theatre, and hosts campus and non-campus performances in the Tsai Performance Center. Visiting artists' work are displayed in rotating exhibitions in the University's three galleries.

Guest and visitor policies

Prior to September 2007, Boston University had a rather restrictive visitor policy, which limited the ability of students from different dormitories to visit each other at night. This changed when a new policy approved by Brown took effect. The new policy allows for students living on campus to swipe into any on-campus dormitory between the hours of 7a.m. and 2a.m. using their ID cards Student residents can also sign in guests with photo identification at any time, day or night. Overnight visitors of the opposite sex are no longer required to seek a same-sex "co-host". However during the week before final exams no guests are permitted in the halls overnight, and are expected to be out of the hall by 2 am.

Accessing Boston University

Most of the buildings of the main campus are located on or near Commonwealth Avenue. The Kenmore Square area of campus (including the Boston University Bookstore, Shelton Hall and Myles Standish Hall) may be accessed using the Kenmore Station Stop on the MBTA Green Line B, C and D trains. Most of the rest of the main campus may be accessed using the B trains of the Green Line between the Blandford Street and Babcock Street stops. The 57 Bus runs along Commonwealth Avenue and into Allston and Brighton. The MBTA Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester Line also stops near campus at Yawkey Station.

The Medical Campus is served by the 1 and CT1 Buses which runs along Massachusetts Avenue as well as the 47 and CT3 buses which connect the Boston University Medical Center with the Longwood Medical Area. The Silver Line Washington Street Branch runs the entire length of the campus, one block north of most parts of the campus; it connects Boston University Medical Center with Tufts/New England Medical Center and downtown Boston. The nearest underground T station is the Massachusetts Avenue station on the Orange Line, located 3 blocks north of the Medical Center.

The Boston University Shuttle (BUS) serves to connect the Charles River Campus, Boston University Theater, and the Medical Campus.

Sustainability

Boston University's sustainability committee is working to "reduce energy consumption and decrease waste across the campus by concentrating on four crucial areas: recycling and waste management, energy efficiency, sustainable building development and operations, and communications, education, and outreach." One of the University's early steps toward creating a greener campus was implementing tray-free dining, which saved both water and cash.
Due to its location in the capital of Europe, home to the European Union and NATO, the school places a strong emphasis on international business, and the student body comprises a diverse range of nationalities and cultures.

Dubai Campus

The University opened a new dental school in Dubai, UAE in 2007. The new dental program admitted its first group of students in July, 2008. In addition to BU’s dental facilities, the campus will eventually contain a wellness center, private clinics, and a major teaching hospital. "Dubai Healthcare City is a free medical zone within the Emirate of Dubai, has been developed as a world-class, academic medical community, which will be developed around the Harvard Medical School Dubai Center, Boston University Institute for Dental Research and Education, and a major university hospital", according to Kathi Ferland, director of admissions at GSDM.,

London Campus

Boston University's largest study abroad program is located in London, England. Boston University British Programmes offers a semester of study and work in London through their London Internship Program (LIP), as well as an adjunct non-internship program at Oxford University, St. Anne's College. Starting in Fall 2008, the programme at Oxford will only be a full academic year term, not just one semester as its been structured in the past. The LIP program combines a professional internship with coursework that examines a particular academic area in the context of Britain’s history, culture, and society and its role in modern Europe. Courses in each academic area are taught by selected British faculty exclusively to students enrolled in the Boston University program. Upon successful completion of a semester, students earn 16 Boston University credits. BU British Programmes are headquartered in South Kensington, London. The campus consists of the main building at 43 Harrington Gardens, as well as six flats that have been converted to house students. This program is open to Boston University students, as well as students at other American colleges, and enrolls between 650 to 850 students across Fall, Spring and Summer terms each year.

Los Angeles Campus

In Los Angeles, BU has an internship program for students to study and work in the heart of the film, television, advertising and public relations, and entertainment management and law industries. The program offers three tracks from which undergraduate and graduate students can choose: Advertising and Public Relations, Film and Television, and Entertainment Management. Graduated students have the opportunity to continue their education by enrolling in the Los Angeles Certificate Program, where students can choose either the Acting in Hollywood or the Writer in Hollywood track. Courses are taught by Boston University faculty and alumni who serve as mentors in and out of the classroom. Upon successful completion of a semester students will earn 16 Boston University credits. Students who successfully complete the Los Angeles Certificate Program will receive eight Boston University credits and a certificate from Boston University College of Fine Arts or College of Communication.

Washington, DC Campus

In Washington, DC, BU has internship and journalism programs. Students live in the University's building on Connecticut Avenue in Woodley Park and take advantage of the city by interning at different locations. The journalism program, run by Linda Killian allows students to act as Washington, DC correspondents for newspapers and television stations across the Northeast and New England while interning at major news outlets in the city. BU Washington Internship Program, BU Washington Journalism Center

Sydney Campus

In Sydney, BU has internship and management as well as film festival and travel writing programs that vary based on semester. Around 150 students live in the University's newly constructed building in Chippendale developed by Tony Owen Partners. The unique design of the building uses "fissures to provide maximum solar access to bedrooms as well as natural ventilation throughout the building." The new building opened in the beginning of 2011 and features underground classrooms, a lecture hall, office space, library, and a roof patio.

Other internship and study abroad opportunities are available through the International Programs office.

Admissions/demographics

Admission statistics for the Class of 2015 have reached a modern high of 41,760 student applicants. The acceptance rate for the class of 2015 is 48%.

The incoming freshman class of 2010 was 68% white, 15% Asian, 7% foreign students, 7% Hispanic, and 2% black. Boston University also has the second highest number of Jews of any private school (after NYU) in the country with between 3,000 and 4,000, or roughly 15% identifying as Jewish.

The international community at Boston University is 18% Chinese, 12% Korean, 11% Indian, 6% Taiwanese, 6% Canadian, 4% Japanese, 3% Turkish, 2% Thai, 2% Saudi Arabian, and 2% Mexican. Of the 7% of students who are international students, 26% are pursuing undergraduate degrees and 47% are pursuing graduate degrees, with the remaining 27% engaged in other educational activity.

The plurality of registrants were from Massachusetts (19%), followed by New York (16%), New Jersey (9%), California (8%), Connecticut (4%), Pennsylvania (4%), and Texas (2%).

Academics

right|200px|thumb|Students take a break on the steps of the [[Boston University College of Arts and Sciences|College of Arts and Sciences.]]Boston University offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees, and medical and dental degrees through its 18 schools and colleges. Each school and college at the university has a three letter abbreviation, which is commonly used in place of their full school or college name. For example, the College of Arts and Sciences is commonly referred to as CAS, the School of Management is SMG, the School of Education is SED, etc.

Colleges and schools

Colleges and schools at Boston University include: :*College of Fine Arts (CFA) :*College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) :**Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GRS) :*College of Communication (COM) :*College of Engineering (ENG) :*College of General Studies (CGS) :*College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Sargent College) (SAR) :*School of Education (SED) :*Division of Extended Education :*School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) :*School of Law (LAW) :*School of Management (SMG) :*Metropolitan College (MET) :**Boston University Brussels (BUB) :**Boston University Science and Engineering Program (SEP) :*School of Social Work (SSW) :*School of Theology (STH) :*School of Medicine (MED) :**Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS) :*Goldman School of Dental Medicine (SDM) :*School of Public Health (SPH)

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) was formerly named the College of Liberal Arts (CLA). The College of Communication was formerly named the School of Public Communication (SPC). The School of Management (SMG) was formerly named the College of Business Administration (CBA). The College of General Studies (CGS) was formerly named the College of Basic Studies (CBS). The School of Nursing (SON) and the College of Practical Arts and Letters (PAL) are units that have been discontinued.

The Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems' technology lab, directed by Gail Carpenter has software, on topics ranging from remote sensing to text mining, available for download.

Rankings

usnwr nu	56
usnwr bus	31
usnwr law	20
usnwr medc	35
usnwr ec	24
arwu w	74
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''QS World University Rankings'' in 2010 ranked Boston University 64th overall in the world and 24th in America, having been ranked 56th and 20th respectively in the 2009 ''THE-QS World University Rankings'' (in 2010 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' and ''QS World University Rankings'' parted ways to produce separate rankings).

''U.S. News & World Report'' ranks Boston University 56th among national universities for 2011. Boston University was also ranked 11th among public health graduate schools, 22nd among law schools, 22nd among social work schools, 31st among business schools, 34th among medical schools, 42nd among engineering schools, and 56th among education schools. In the Arts and Sciences (last ranked in 2009), BU was ranked 24th for economics, 36th for physics, 46th for English, 48th for history, 48th for math, 48th for computer science, 50th for psychology (33rd for clinical psychology), 55th for earth sciences, 57th for sociology, 58th for fine arts, 62nd in chemistry, and 89th for biology.

''Shanghai Jiao Tong University'''s Academic Ranking of World Universities ranks Boston University 44th in the United States for academic rigor, and 74th in the world, in its 2009 list of the Top 1000 Universities.

''Newsweek'' (International Edition), in its list of the Top 100 Global Universities, ranked Boston University the 35th in the United States, and 65th in the world. Similarly, the ''Global University Ranking'' 2009 placed Boston among the 66 best universities worldwide.

The Biomedical Engineering Graduate and Undergraduate Programs are ranked 7th and 8th respectively in the nation and rising by ''U.S. News & World Report''. The undergraduate program is also the sixth-largest ABET-accredited program in the nation.

thumb|250px|right|The Rafik B. Hariri Building houses the [[Boston University School of Management|School of Management.]]''

Additionally, most of the graduate programs in the Boston University College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Sargent College) ranked within the top 15% in the country. The Occupational Therapy Program ranked 1st out of 152 programs; the Physical Therapy Program ranked 24th out of 199 programs; and the Speech-Language Pathology Program ranked 25th out of 244 programs.

''Business Week'' ranks Boston University's MBA program 38th, and its undergraduate business program 31st.

''The Economist'' ranks ''Boston University School of Management'' 21st among global MBA programs in 2009.

''The Financial Times'' ranks Boston University's MBA program 29th among U.S. School and 57th in the world.

thumb|250px|left|The Talbot Building located on the medical campus houses the [[Boston University School of Public Health|School of Public Health, which is ranked 11th in the nation.]] Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities ranks Boston University 44th best overall university, and 42nd best undergraduate university in the United States (two schools ranked above BU are graduate schools only; UCSF and Rockefeller), as well as 74th best in the world, on its list of the Top 500 universities in the world.

The Center for Measuring University Performance. ranks Boston University among the top 50 research universities in the country.

''The Wall Street Journal'' ranks Boston University's MBA program 41st nationally and the Information Technology department is ranked 10th in the world for academic excellence (September 2005).

The School of Management is ranked among the top 25 programs in the US by ''Entrepreneur'' magazine (April 2005).

BU is one of 96 American universities receiving the highest research classification ("RU/VH") by the Carnegie Foundation.

The Sustainable Endowments Institute awarded Boston University a "B-" grade for its efforts in sustainability on the College Sustainability Report Card 2009. The University's mark on the Report Card has improved steadily since 2007. In that year it earned a "D", and in 2008 it earned a "C."

Cost

The 2010–2011 school year full-time tuition totaled $39,314 with exceptions to some schools. The total cost (including room and board) averages $52,574. Compared to the previous year, the school has made a 3.65 percent increase in the price of tuition, room and board. It is the smallest percentage increase since 1969. In addition, the increase of tuition resulted to a 12 percent increase in financial aid for students. President Brown said in an e-mail addressed to the student body that "efforts to control costs and maintain quality have been successful."

The standard on-campus housing component of this cost is approximately $8,000 a year while more premium choices in the newer Student Village residence halls run nearly $13,000 a year. By comparison, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Allston-Brighton area is $1300, or $7800 per person per year.

Grade Deflation

The independently-run student newspaper at Boston University, ''The Daily Free Press'', as well as ''The New York Times'', have published articles exploring the existence of grade deflation. ''The Times'' discovered that administrators have suggested to faculty members deflated ideal grade distributions. Though an article in the staff's ''BU Today'' asserted that "the GPAs of BU undergrads and the percentage of As and Bs have both risen over the last two decades," the ''New York Times'' has found BU grades rising more slowly with respect to many other schools.

Currently, the average GPA of a BU undergraduate is 3.04, compared to the averages of 3.35 for Boston College, 3.48 for Amherst College, 3.41 for New York University and 3.45 for Harvard University. About 81 percent of all grades earned in either the A or B range (75% in the B range)." The article went on to note that although the university attempted to curb grade inflation and inconsistency in the late 1990s both the percentage of "A's" and GPAs have been rising since. They attributed the grade deflation not to teachers' grading policies, but to the increasing quality of each incoming class which leads to more top grades.

Journals and publications

Boston University is home to several academic journals and publications. The School of Law hosts six nationally recognized law journals, including the ''Boston University Law Review'', ''American Journal of Law and Medicine'', ''Review of Banking & Financial Law'', ''Boston University International Law Journal'', ''Journal of Science and Technology Law'', and ''Public Interest Law Journal''. The School of Education houses ''The Journal of Education'', which is the oldest continuously published journal in the field of education in the country. The ''American Journal of Media Psychology'' and the ''Public Relations Journal'' are currently edited by professors at the College of Communication, which is also home to the ''New England Center for Investigative Reporting'', which generates numerous publications yearly. ''Studies in Romanticism'' is housed at the Department of English and ''The Journal of Field Archeology'' is housed at the Department of Archeology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Special academic programs

Core Curriculum

Offered in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Core Curriculum offers an intensive great books program for any incoming freshmen who choose to participate. Occupying two classes a semester during freshman and sophomore years, the program has four humanities sections which start with Gilgamesh and work their way through Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Bach and many more. The Social Sciences part of the program includes Hobbes, John Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Marx, and continues through contemporary works. Lastly, the science aspect of the program deals with major ideas such as big bang theory, evolution, quantum mechanics and more. Ultimately, the program seeks to combine science, math, humanities, art, and the social sciences into a cohesive program to give students insight into their world and help them become more refined writers and scholars.

University Professors Program

The University Professors Program (UNI) is an interdisciplinary program that allows students to pursue a broad range of academic interests. With a student to faculty ratio of 4:1, UNI offers students a broad education in a more personalized atmosphere. Students take a common, intimate, "Core" program consisting of liberal arts courses taught by University Professors in small seminar settings. They then work closely with an advisor to craft a course of study which will lead them to an interdisciplinary degree, culminating in a senior thesis. Based upon the report of an academic review committee, a new University-wide honors program will be developed and the UNI program will be gradually phased out. Students currently enrolled will continue in the program.

Student life

Student publications

Despite a Student Activities policy which prohibits student-run publications from receiving University funding for printing costs, student journals continue to thrive at Boston University as department-sponsored publications, edited by students under the supervision of faculty and staff advisors. The coordinator for undergraduate publications, responsible for acquainting new editors with University guidelines and directing publications staff to campus production and financial resources, has been Zachary Bos of the Core Curriculum since 2006.

Although officially and entirely independent from the University, ''The Daily Free Press'' (often referred to as ''The FreeP''), is the campus student newspaper, and the fourth largest daily newspaper in Boston. Since 1970, it has provided students with campus news, city and state news, sports coverage, editorials, arts and entertainment, and special feature stories. ''The Daily Free Press'' is published every regular instruction day of the University year and is available at BU dorms, classroom buildings and commercial locations frequented by students.

''Synapse'' is the Boston University Undergraduate Science Magazine and is published online every semester. The "Science" focus is on many disciplines ranging from life sciences to physical sciences, engineering to mathematics, and finance to economics. The magazine is peer and faculty reviewed, and is advertised with routine, campus-wide distribution of pamphlets highlighting featured articles. ''Synapse'' was first published in the spring of 2009 and continues to publish articles each semester.

''The Brownstone Journal'' is the longest-running campus publication, having been publishing undergraduate research, scholarly articles and essays, and literary work in translation, since 1982. The Brownstone is currently sponsored by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, but was originally a departmental publication of the University Professors Program. The staff operates from their offices in the former yearbook space in the basement of 10 Lenox Street, beneath the editorial offices of ''Bostonia''.

The literary arts magazine ''Clarion'' has been printed since 1998. The first issue, titled "?", was published by the group Students for Literary Awareness with the sponsorship of the Department of English; subsequent issues have been issued by the BU Literary Society. ''Burn Magazine'' is a younger literary magazine, published biannually.

In 2006, the first issue of ''Pusteblume'' journal of translation was published by a group of former and current students of a co-curricular poetry seminar run by Professor George Kalogeris of the Core Curriculum. The journal, jointly sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages, the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literatures, and the Core Curriculum, publishes literature in translation and articles concerning translation.

''The Journal of the Core Curriculum'' has been published continuously since 1992 by the College of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum. Produced by a student editorial staff with the guidance of a faculty advisor, the very interdisciplinary Core Journal publishes academic prose, literary imitations, fictitious encounters between figures from the 'great works', original poetry and creative writing, essays, artwork, translations, and even—in Vol. XVI, Spring 2007—original musical compositions. ''The Back Bay Review'' is a student-run journal of critical writing.

''Arché'' is an annual journal of undergraduate work in philosophy, whose first issue was released in the summer of 2007. It is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and published by the Undergraduate Philosophy Association.

''The International Relations Review'' began in 2009 as a subsidiary publication of The Boston University International Affairs Association. Entirely student-run, ''The IR Review'' is an independent scholarly journal publishing articles from all areas in international affairs. The goal of ''The IRR'' is to unite the many talents and experiences within BU's vast department of international relations.

Even more independent, ''The Student Underground'', focuses on alternative political and cultural activity. Since 1997, issues have been published roughly monthly by a "not-for-profit collective" composed mostly of BU students. In 2007, the paper began operating under the name ''The Boston Underground''; the original editorial focus on campus issues has over the years weakened as the founding editors graduated from BU or left Boston altogether.

''The Sam Adams Review'' was a short-lived monthly student newspaper "providing news for the American Spirit," geared toward a conservative readership. Its staff was not officially recognized as a registed student activity group but, like the Underground, was entirely student-run.

''Boink'' was launched in February 2005 by a group of undergrads led by Alecia Oleyourryk, who was then a senior at the College of Communications. The magazine features BU students posing nude, as well as articles on sexuality. At the time of its first issue, the Dean of Students issued a statement explaining that "the University does not endorse, nor welcome, the prospective publication Boink." The magazine was then, and remains, unaffiliated with the University.

In September 2005, the student paper ''The Source'' began to appear weekly, and was characterized by a predominance of arts and entertainment coverage. No new issues were printed after November 2006, and it appears the publisher Greenline Media is now defunct.

The "BU Quad" is an independent, student-run online magazine started in fall of 2009. The magazine features articles and columns on topics including campus news, television, food, politics, and music.

BU Culture Shock is the official blog of the Howard Thurman Center, Boston University's multicultural center. It is dedicated to free expression and open discussion. Culture Shock is notable for its coverage of the 2011 Boston University Union election, inviting contributions from candidates along with other students.

Community Service Center

The Boston University Community Service Center (CSC) is almost entirely student-run. Each semester, the CSC runs 13 volunteer programs related to issues of local, national, or global concern, including hunger, children, elders, disabilities, homelessness and affordable housing, human rights, AIDS awareness, gender issues, and the environment.

The CSC also runs two immensely popular one-week programs. During the First Year Student Outreach Project (FYSOP), upperclassmen lead groups of new freshmen in volunteer activities throughout Boston before the start of first semester. For Alternative Spring Break (ASB), hundreds of students travel by 12-passenger van, bus and fly to locations throughout the country to do service projects in a variety of areas of need. In the past students camped out, starting the day before signups, to get spots on trips. Starting in 2010 registration process moved on-line.

The CSC boasts the most student involvement of any organization on campus.

Graduate workshops

Willing Suspension Productions provides graduate English students the opportunity to present rare Early modern drama before a Boston audience. The program was founded in 1993 and produces one play per year.

ROTC

ROTC at BU traces its origins back to August 16, 1919 when the U.S. War Department stood up the Students’ Army Training Corps at Boston University, the predecessor to the current Army ROTC program. Today, BU is one of twenty five colleges and universities in the country to host all three ROTC programs – Army, Navy, and Air Force. Students wishing to be commissioned into the Marine Corps study as Navy Midshipmen.

Other clubs and activities

The Boston University Dear Abbeys is an acclaimed All-Male student a cappella group. In 2005, they won the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, a prestigious nation-wide tournament for collegiate a cappella groups.

Boston University is one of the 22 nation-wide college sites where there is a branch of Peer Health Exchange. Peer Health Exchange trains college students to become PHE Health Educators in neighboring public high schools that lack funding for health education. Health Educators teach the following topics in ninth grade classrooms: Decision-Making and Communication I, Sexual Decision-Making, Pregnancy Prevention, Sexually Transmitted Infections & HIV, Healthy Relationships, Abusive Relationships, Rape & Sexual Assault, Nutrition & Physical Activity, Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs, Mental Health, and Decision-Making and Communication II.

Boston University Stage Troupe is the University's oldest and largest performing arts group. Open to undergrads not majoring in theatre, the group performs many shows a year, and also hosts special events, some of which are coordinated with the Dean of Students.

The ''Boston University Debate Society'' regularly competes on the American Parliamentary Debate Association debate circuit. During the 2010-11 season, BUDS fielded debaters who won both "Team of the Year" distinction as well as the 2011 National Championship at West Point, NY. The team hosts an unopposed national tournament on campus each spring, with nearly every APDA college represented.

The Boston University Figure Skating Club is a team of students who figure skate and ice dance, and a fully fledged member of the United States Figure Skating Association. It is the reigning two-time U.S. National Intercollegiate Team Champion. In addition, the "Boston University Terrierettes" compete in Collegiate Synchronized skating, and have routinely placed in the top ten at the United States Synchronized Team Skating Championships.

The Boston University International Affairs Association (BUIAA) is the evolution of the Boston University Model United Nations Association (BUMUNA), which was founded in 1973. This club also hosts two conferences annually, one for high school students and one on the collegiate level. BosMUN, BUIAA's high school conference, hosts over 1,000 students annually from all across the globe. Last year, schools came from China, Guatemala, and Canada. BarMUN (Boston Area Model United Nations Conference) is BUIAA's college level conference. BarMUN stands apart from other college conference in that the conference is a full scale simulation, ranging from 4 to 8 committee joint crises.

The ''Hug Don't Hate'' grassroots peace-building campaign was founded in 2006 at Boston University with the mission of creating lasting peace through happiness, understanding and respect. All of Hug Don't Hate's activities are focused on helping individuals find common ground. The activities are divided into 4 branches: 'Free Hug Fridays', 'Urban Smiles', 'Connective Kindness' and 'BUNITED'. Hug Don't Hate is also currently expanding to different locations.

The Greek community on BU's campus consists of nine sororities (nine Panhellenic chapters), ten fraternities (seven Inter-Fraternity Council chapters) and recently created Multicultural Greek Council (four fraterneties and one sorority). The student population that is enrolled in fraternities and sororities is currently 8% and growing. In 2008, over 560 women went through formal sorority recruitment which occurs the first weekend of 2nd semester.

The ''Boston University India Club'' is the University's largest student-run organization. Open to students of all ethnic backgrounds, the club sponsors cultural shows, performances and activities that showcase South Asian culture. BUIC also hosts and organizes the annual GarbaFest Competition, a garba raas competition.

Lambda Chi Alpha (ΛΧΑ), a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) and one of the largest men's general fraternities in North America, was founded by Warren A. Cole, while he was a student at Boston University, on November 2, 1909.

Delta Delta Delta (ΔΔΔ) was founded at Boston University on Thanksgiving Eve, 1888. Sarah Ida Shaw, later known as Ida Shaw Martin, founded Tri Delta without the assistance of a men's fraternity, a unique accomplishment for her time.

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Dean's Hosts are a premier student volunteer organization where members serve as liaisons between CAS students and faculty members. Most notably, CAS Dean's Hosts along with CAS Student Government throw the Top of the Hub formal in downtown Boston annually.

The "Boston University Soccer Club" is an athletic-based club that allows members of the BU community to participate in a variety of soccer related events ranging from pick-up futsal games at the Fitness and Recreation Center, to philanthropic fundraising matches such as the annual "Lose the Shoes" charity tournament, from which all the proceeds go to the GrassrootSoccer campaign. The motto of the club is: "Unifying diversity through the love of the world's beautiful game."

CAS Student Government is the University's largest individual student government group. Each year they work with the administration of the College of Arts and Sciences to deal with multiple student affairs issues within CAS. They also program many events for the students of CAS including: Celtics Night, Coffee at Finals, Ice Skating at Frog Pond, Senior Reception, and many more.

Boston University offers nearly 500 student organizations on campus.

Athletics

Boston University's NCAA Division I Terriers compete in basketball, cross country, golf, ice hockey, rowing, soccer, swimming, tennis, track, and wrestling, while the Lady Terriers compete in basketball, dance, cross country, field hockey, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, and track. Boston University athletics teams compete in the America East, Hockey East, and Colonial Athletic Association conferences, and their mascot is Rhett the Boston Terrier.

The Boston University men's hockey team is the most successful on campus, and is a storied college hockey franchise, with five NCAA championships – including the 2009 NCAA title, which was a classic last-minute comeback victory. The team is coached by hall-of-famer Jack Parker, and is a major supplier of talent to the NHL, as well as to the 1980 U.S.A. Gold Medal-winning men's hockey team. Boston University's hockey team has won 29 Beanpot titles, more than any other team in the tournament, which includes Harvard University, Boston College, and Northeastern University. Boston University also won the Sun Life Frozen Fenway contest in 2010 against Boston College by a score of 3–2. It was an outdoor Hockey East college game played at Fenway Park a week after the NHL Winter Classic.

BU has also won two national championships in women's rowing, in 1991 and 1992.

Boston University recently constructed the new Agganis Arena, which opened on January 3, 2005 with a men's hockey game between the Terriers and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. The Agganis Arena is also used occasionally to host other non-sporting related events.

Boston University disbanded its football team in 1997. The university used the nearly $3 million from its football program to build the multimillion-dollar John Hancock Student Village and athletic complex. Among the biggest benefactors of the decision was BU women, who saw the funding for their teams increased. "By implementing the total plan, we can achieve a much more balanced set of sports programs for both men and women, which is consistent with the philosophy underlying Title IX," said former BU athletic director Gary Strickler.

Club sports

Boston University students also compete in athletics at the club level. Thirty six club sports are recognized by the university, including: Synchronized Skating, Baseball; Inline Hockey; Men's Volleyball; Women's Volleyball; Men's Lacrosse; Snowboard; Ultimate Frisbee; Kung Fu; Fencing; Rugby Football; Synchronized Swimming; Cheerleading; Table Tennis; Women's Water Polo; Men's Water Polo; Women's Rugby; Alpine Ski Racing; Snowboarding; Cycling; Badminton; Ballroom Dance; Figure Skating; Golf; Gymnastics; Jiu Jitsu; Kendo; Shotokan Karate; Sailing; Taekwondo; Triathlon; Dance Theater Group; Squash, Equestrian, and Men's Club Football

The BU Table Tennis team has won the divisional championships a number of times this decade, most recently in 2006 (Men's) and 2007 (Women's). Both Men's and Women's Intervarsity Table Tennis Teams have attended the National Collegiate Table Tennis Tournaments and ranked as high as the top 10 nationwide.

The BU Dinghy Sailors are the most recent BU team to win a national championship for the school at the varsity level, having won the ICSA Collegiate Nationals in 1999.

The BU Figure Skating Team recently won the 2009 Intercollegiate National Figure Skating Championships held in Colorado Springs, CO.

Fight song: "Go B.U."

Go BU, Go BU! Sing her praises loud and true! We'll fight for our alma mater, On to sure victory!! Fight! Fight! Fight! Go BU, Go BU! Down the field to score anew! Our hearts are with you as you meet the foe. We hail you, Ole BU!

Due to the lack of a football team since 1997, students use the word "ice" instead of "field" in the seventh line at hockey games, and "court" at basketball games.

Additionally, in the "unofficial" version of the song, often sung by students, the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!" are replaced with "BC sucks!", a nod to the ice hockey rivalry between the two schools.

Notable alumni and faculty

There are 285,000 Boston University alumni, representing almost every country in the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of BU's most notable alumni. Three alumni hold historical importance: Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African-American woman and Charles Eastman (first named Ohiyesa) the first American Indian to be certified as doctors and Helen Magill White was the first woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. Other well-known alumni include actors Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore and Geena Davis, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, former Senator Judd Gregg, radio personality Howard Stern, celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, J.Crew CEO and former Gap Inc. CEO Millard Drexler, sports writer Bill Simmons, television personality Bill O'Reilly, Bravo executive Andy Cohen, former Second Lady Tipper Gore and cohost of Project Runway and fashion editor for Marie Claire Magazine Nina Garcia. The former First Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Earle O. Latham. The American painter Franz Kline attended BU. The founder of the Albanian Orthodox Church, Fan S. Noli, received a doctorate from BU. Infosys co-founder S. D. Shibulal did his MS from BU.

Current and former faculty of BU include Alexander Graham Bell, Elie Wiesel, Andre de Quadros, Howard Zinn, Isaac Asimov, Derek Walcott, Robert Pinsky, Bob Zelnick, and Andrew Bacevich.

See also

Boston University Police Department

Einstein Papers Project

References

Further reading

Wertheimer, Linda K. BU to launch $1.8b plan to expand, upgrade faculty. ''Boston Globe'', October 18, 2007.

Boston University strategic plan. Choosing to Be Great: A vision of Boston University—past, present, and future, November 19, 2007.

External links

CNS Technology Lab website

Category:New England Association of Schools and Colleges Category:Universities and colleges in Boston, Massachusetts Category:Educational institutions established in 1839 Category:National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities members Category:Universities and colleges in Massachusetts Category:Fenway–Kenmore

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Name	Boston
Settlement type	City
Image seal	Seal of Boston.svg
Nickname	Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe), The Cradle of Liberty, The Cradle of Modern America, The Athens of America, The Walking City
Motto	'' Sicut patribus sit Deus nobis '' (Latin "As God was with our fathers, so may He be with us")
Map caption	Location in Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Coordinates display	displayinline,title
Pushpin map	USA2
Pushpin label position	left
Pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
Coordinates region	US-MA
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	:United States
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision name1	Massachusetts
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Suffolk
Established title	Settled
Established date	September 17, 1630
Established title2	Incorporated (city)
Established date2	March 4, 1822
Government type	Strong mayor – council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Thomas M. Menino (D)
Area footnotes
Unit pref	US
Area magnitude	1 E+8
Area total sq mi	89.63
Area total km2	232.14
Area land sq mi	48.43
Area land km2	125.43
Area water sq mi	41.21
Area water km2	106.73
Area urban sq mi	1774
Area urban km2	4595
Area metro sq mi	4511
Area metro km2	11683
Area blank1 title	CSA
Area blank1 sq mi	10644
Area blank1 km2	27568
Elevation ft	141
Population as of
Population total	617594 ('10 census)
Population density sq mi	12752
Population density km2	4924
Population urban	4032484 ('00 census)
Population metro	4522858 ('08 est.)
Population blank1 title	CSA
Population blank1	7609358 ('09 est.)
Population blank2 title	Demonym
Population blank2	Bostonian
Timezone	EST
Utc offset	-5
Timezone dst	EDT
Utc offset dst	-4
Postal code type	ZIP code(s)
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Boston (pronounced ) is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had a population of 617,594 according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Boston is also the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region includes six Massachusetts counties: Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Plymouth, Worcester, northern Bristol County, all of Rhode Island and parts of New Hampshire; it is home to 7.6 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.

In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city on the Shawmut Peninsula. During the late 18th century, Boston was the location of several major events during the American Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Several early battles of the American Revolution, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, occurred within the city and surrounding areas. Through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the peninsula. After American independence was attained Boston became a major shipping port and manufacturing center, and its rich history now helps attract many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone attracting over 20 million every year. The city was the site of several firsts, including America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635), and the first subway system in the United States (1897).

With many colleges and universities within the city and surrounding area, Boston is an international center of higher education and a center for medicine. The city's economy is also based on research, electronics, engineering, finance, and high technology—principally biotechnology. As a result, the city is a leading finance center, ranking 12th in the Z/Yen top 20 Global Financial Centers. The city was also ranked number one for innovation, both globally and in North America, for a variety of reasons. Boston has been experiencing gentrification, and has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, though it remains high on world livability rankings, ranking third in the US and 37th globally.

History

Boston was founded on September 17, 1630, by Puritan colonists from England. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are sometimes confused with the Pilgrims, who founded Plymouth Colony ten years earlier in what is today Bristol County, Plymouth County, and Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The two groups, which differed in religious practice, are historically distinct. The separate colonies were not united until the formation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.

The Shawmut Peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and was surrounded by the waters of Massachusetts Bay and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. Several prehistoric Native American archaeological sites that were excavated in the city have shown that the peninsula was inhabited as early as 5000 BC. Boston's early European settlers first called the area ''Trimountaine'', but later renamed the town after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, from which several prominent colonists had emigrated. Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor, John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity", popularly known as the "City on a Hill" sermon, which espoused the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. (Winthrop also led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, which is regarded as a key founding document of the city.) Puritan ethics molded a stable and well-structured society in Boston. For example, shortly after Boston's settlement, Puritans founded America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635). Over the next 130 years, Boston participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their native allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British North America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century.

In the 1770s, British attempts to exert more-stringent control on the thirteen colonies—primarily via taxation—led to the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and several early battles—including the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston—occurred in or near the city. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride. After the Revolution, Boston had become one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports because of the city's consolidated seafaring tradition. Exports included rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. During this era, descendants of old Boston families were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites; they were later dubbed the ''Boston Brahmins''.

The Embargo Act of 1807, adopted during the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 significantly curtailed Boston's harbor activity. Although foreign trade returned after these hostilities, Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and by the mid-19th century, the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance. Until the early 20th century, Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers and was notable for its garment production and leather-goods industries. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads facilitated the region's industry and commerce. From the mid-19th to late 19th century, Boston flourished culturally. It became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. It also became a center of the abolitionist movement. The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which contributed to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Burns Fugitive Slave Case.

In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from "the Town of Boston" to "the City of Boston", and on March 4, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the City. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only . In the 1820s, Boston's population began to swell, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period. By 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settle in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants—Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community, and since the early 20th century, the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics—prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.

Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by land reclamation—by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront —a process that Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves". The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown. After The Great Boston Fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km²) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. Also, the city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals, for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea, have been unsuccessful.

By the early and mid-20th century, the city was in decline as factories became old and obsolete, and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which was established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with vociferous public opposition. BRA subsequently reevaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of Government Center. In 1965, the first Community Health Center in the United States opened, the Columbia Point Health Center, in the Dorchester neighborhood. It mostly served the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it, which was built in 1953. The health center is still in operation and was rededicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center.

By the 1970s, the city's economy boomed after 30 years of economic downturn. A large number of high rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay during this time period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and later began again. Boston now has the second largest skyline in the Northeast (after New York) in terms of the number of buildings reaching a height of over . Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital lead the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as Boston University, the Harvard Medical School, Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Boston Conservatory attract students to the area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s. In 1984, the City of Boston gave control of the Columbia Point public housing complex to a private developer, who redeveloped and revitalized the property from its rundown and dangerous state into an attractive residential mixed-income community called Harbor Point Apartments, which opened in 1988 and was completed by 1990. It was the first federal housing project to be converted to private, mixed-income housing in the United States, and served as a model for the federal HUD HOPE VI public housing revitalization program that began in 1992.

In the early 21st century, the city has become an intellectual, technological, and political center. It has, however, experienced a loss of regional institutions, which included the acquisition of ''The Boston Globe'' by ''The New York Times'', and the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both been merged into the New York–based Macy's. Boston has also experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s. Living expenses have risen, and Boston has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, and was ranked the 99th most expensive major city in the world in a 2008 survey of 143 cities. Despite cost of living issues, Boston ranks high on livability ratings, ranking 37th worldwide in quality of living in 2010 in a survey of 221 major cities.

Geography

Owing to its early founding, Boston is very compact. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 89.6 square miles (232.1 km²)—48.4 square miles (125.4 km²) (54.0%) of land and 41.2 square miles (106.7 km²) (46.0%) of water. Boston is the country's third most densely populated city that is not a part of a larger city's metropolitan area. This is largely attributable to the rarity of annexation by New England towns. Of United States cities with more than 600,000 people, only San Francisco is smaller in land area. Boston is surrounded by the "Greater Boston" region and is bordered by the cities and towns of Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Somerville, Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Brookline, Needham, Dedham, Canton, Milton, and Quincy. The Charles River separates Boston proper from Cambridge, Watertown, and the neighborhood of Charlestown. To the east lies Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (BHINRA). This includes part of the city's territory, specifically Calf Island, Gallops Island, Great Brewster Island, Green Island, Little Brewster Island, Little Calf Island, Long Island, Lovells Island, Middle Brewster Island, Nixes Mate, Outer Brewster Island, Rainsford Island, Shag Rocks, Spectacle Island, The Graves, and Thompson Island. The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the city of Quincy and the town of Milton. The Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, and Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Boston proper. Boston's official elevation, as measured at Logan International Airport, is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level. The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 ft (101 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level. Boston is the only state capital in the contiguous United States with an ocean coastline.

Much of the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods are built on reclaimed land—all of the earth from two of Boston's three original hills, the "Trimountain", was used as landfill material. Pemberton Hill, which would become Pemberton Square in the Government Center neighborhood, and Mount Vernon, were leveled completely. Only Beacon Hill—the smallest of the three original hills—remains partially intact; only half of its height was cut down for landfill. Tremont Street is named after the three hills. The downtown area and immediate surroundings consist mostly of low-rise brick or stone buildings, with many older buildings in the Federal style. Several of these buildings mix in with modern high-rises, notably in the Financial District, Government Center, the South Boston waterfront, and Back Bay, which includes many prominent landmarks such as the Boston Public Library, Christian Science Center, Copley Square, Newbury Street, and New England's two tallest buildings—the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Center.

Near the John Hancock Tower is the old John Hancock Building with its prominent weather forecast beacon—the color of the illuminated light gives an indication of weather to come: "steady blue, clear view; flashing blue, clouds are due; steady red, rain ahead; flashing red, snow instead". (In the summer, flashing red indicates instead that a Red Sox game has been rained out.) Smaller commercial areas are interspersed among single-family homes and wooden/brick multi-family row houses. Currently, the South End Historic District remains the largest surviving contiguous Victorian-era neighborhood in the U.S. Along with downtown, the geography of South Boston was particularly impacted by the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project (or the "Big Dig"). The unstable reclaimed land in South Boston posed special problems for the project's tunnels. In the downtown area, the CA/T Project allowed for the removal of the unsightly elevated Central Artery and the incorporation of new green spaces and open areas.

thumb|right|Boston Common seen from the Prudential Skywalk Observatory, an observation deck on the 50th floor of the Prudential Tower Boston Common, located near the Financial District and Beacon Hill, is the oldest public park in the United States. Along with the adjacent Boston Public Garden, it is part of the Emerald Necklace, a string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to encircle the city. Jamaica Pond, part of the Emerald Necklace, is the largest body of freshwater in the city. Franklin Park, which is also part of the Emerald Necklace, is the city's largest park and houses the Franklin Park Zoo. Another major park is the Esplanade, located along the banks of the Charles River. The Hatch Shell, an outdoor concert venue, is located adjacent to the Charles River Esplanade. Other parks are scattered throughout the city, with the major parks and beaches located near Castle Island (not part of the BHINRA, and now connected to the mainland); in Charlestown; and along the Dorchester, South Boston, and East Boston shorelines.

Neighborhoods

Boston is sometimes called a "city of neighborhoods" because of the profusion of diverse subsections. There are 21 official neighborhoods in Boston used by the city. These neighborhoods include: Allston/Brighton, Back Bay, Bay Village, Beacon Hill, Charlestown, Chinatown/Leather District, Dorchester, Downtown/Financial District, East Boston, Fenway/Kenmore, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Mission Hill, North End, Roslindale, Roxbury, South Boston, South End, West End, and West Roxbury.

Climate

Boston has a climate that is continental in nature but with maritime influences owing to its coastal location, a phenomenon common to coastal southern New England. The climate is classified as a humid continental climate (Koppen ''Dfa'', ''Cfa'' respectively). Summers are typically warm, rainy, and humid, while winters are cold, windy, and snowy. Spring and fall are usually mild, but conditions are widely varied, depending on wind direction and jet stream positioning. Prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore affect Boston, minimizing the influence of the Atlantic Ocean.

The hottest month is July, with a mean temperature of . The coldest month is January, with a mean of . Periods exceeding in summer and below in winter are not uncommon but rarely extended, with about 14 days per year seeing the former extreme, and the most recent subzero reading occurring on January 24, 2011. Extremes have ranged from , recorded on February 9, 1934 and July 4, 1911, respectively.

Boston's coastal location on the North Atlantic, although it moderates temperatures, also makes the city very prone to Nor'easter weather systems that can produce much snow and rain. The city averages of precipitation a year, with of snowfall a year. Snowfall increases dramatically as one goes inland away from the city (especially north and west of the city)—away from the warming influence of the ocean. Most snowfall occurs from December through March. There is usually little or no snow in April and November, and snow is rare in May and October.

Fog is prevalent, particularly in spring and early summer, and the occasional tropical storm or hurricane can threaten the region, especially in early autumn. Due to its situation along the North Atlantic, the city is often subjected to sea breeze, especially in the late spring, when water temperatures are still quite cold and temperatures at the coast can be more than colder than a few miles inland, sometimes dropping by that amount near midday. From May to September, the city experiences thunderstorms that are occasionally severe; large hail, damaging winds and heavy downpours accompany such severe events. Although downtown Boston has never been struck by a violent tornado, the city itself has seen its fair share of tornado warnings, but damaging storms are more common to areas north, west, and northwest of the city.

Demographics

According to the 2000 United States Census, there were 589,141 people, 239,528 households, and 115,212 families residing in the city. When including the Greater Boston region, rather than just the city itself, the total is approximately 4.5 million. Boston's population density was 12,166 people per square mile (4,697/km²). There were 251,935 housing units at an average density of 5,203 per square mile (2,009/km²). The 2010 U.S. Census population count for the city was 617,594, a 4.8% increase over 2000. During weekdays, the population of Boston can grow during the daytime to over 1.2 million, and can reach as many as 2 million during special events. This fluctuation of people is caused by hundreds of thousands of suburban residents who travel to the city for work, education, health care, and special events.

In the city, the population was spread out with 19.8% under the age of 18, 16.2% from 18 to 24, 35.8% from 25 to 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.2 males. There were 239,528 households, of which 22.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 27.4% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 51.9% were non-families. 37.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 3.17.

The median income for a household in the city was $39,629, and the median income for a family was $44,151. Males had a median income of $37,435 versus $32,421 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,353. 19.5% of the population and 15.3% of families are below the poverty line. Of the total population, 25.6% of those under the age of 18 and 18.2% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

From the 1950s to the end of the 20th century, the proportion of non-Hispanic whites in the city declined; in 2000, non-Hispanic whites made up 49.5% of the city's population, making the city majority-minority for the first time. However, in recent years the city has experienced significant gentrification, in which affluent whites have moved into formerly non-white areas. Meanwhile, the city's black population has decreased. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that non-Hispanic whites again formed a slight majority. But as of 2010, in part due to the housing crash, as well as increased efforts to make more affordable housing more available the minority population has rebounded. This may also have to do with an increased Latino population and more clarity surrounding U.S. Census statistics, which indicate a Non-Hispanic White population of 47 percent (some reports give slightly lower figures).

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the racial composition of Boston was as follows:

White: 53.9% (Non-Hispanic Whites: 47.0%)

Black or African American: 22.4%

Native American: 0.2%

Asian: 8.9%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.0%

Some other race: 1.6%

Two or more races: 2.4%

Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 17.5%

People of Irish descent form the largest single ethnic group in the city, making up 15.8% of the population, followed by Italians, accounting for 8.3% of the population. People of West Indian ancestry are another sizable group, at 6.4%, about half of whom are of Haitian ancestry. Some neighborhoods, such as Dorchester, have received an influx of people of Vietnamese ancestry in recent decades. Neighborhoods such as Jamaica Plain and Roslindale have experienced a growing number of Dominican Americans. The city and greater area also has a large immigration population of South Asians, including the tenth-largest Indian community in the country, with an estimated 62,598 Indians.

The city also has a sizable Jewish population with an estimated 21,000 Jews within the city and 22 synagogues. The adjacent communities of Brookline and Newton are both approximately one third Jewish.

Accent

The "Boston accent" is widely parodied in the U.S. as the speech of the Kennedys. It is non-rhotic (i.e., drops the "r" sound at the end of syllables unless the next syllable starts with a vowel) and traditionally uses a "broad a" in certain words, so "bath" can sound like "bahth". Boston English has many dialect words, such as "frappe", meaning "milkshake made with ice cream" (as opposed to other milkshakes). The accent originated in the non-rhotic speech of 17th century East Anglia and Lincolnshire.

Crime

The city has seen a great reduction in violent crime since the early 1990s. Boston's low crime rate over the past decade or so has been credited to the Boston Police Department's collaboration with neighborhood groups and church parishes to prevent youths from joining gangs, as well as involvement from the United States Attorney and District Attorney's offices. This helped lead in part to what has been touted as the "Boston Miracle". Murders in the city dropped from 152 in 1990 (for a murder rate of 26.5 per 100,000 people) to just 31—not one of them a juvenile—in 1999 (for a murder rate of 5.26 per 100,000).

In the first decade of the 21st century, however, the annual murder count has fluctuated by as much as 50% compared with the year before, with 60 murders in 2002, followed by just 39 in 2003, 64 in 2004, and 75 in 2005. Although the figures are nowhere near the high-water mark set in 1990, the aberrations in the murder rate have been unsettling for many Bostonians and have prompted discussion over whether the Boston Police Department should reevaluate its approach to fighting crime.

Economy

Encompassing $363 billion, the Greater Boston metropolitan area has the sixth-largest economy in the country and 12th-largest in the world.

Boston's colleges and universities have a significant effect on the regional economy, with students contributing an estimated $4.8 billion annually to the city's economy. Boston's schools are major employers and attract industries to the city and surrounding region. Boston is home to a number of technology companies and is a hub for biotechnology, with the Milken Institute rating Boston as the top life sciences cluster in the country. Boston also receives the highest absolute amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health of all cities in the United States.

Tourism comprises a large part of Boston's economy. In 2004, tourists spent $7.9 billion and made the city one of the ten-most-popular tourist locations in the country. Because of Boston's status as a state capital and the regional home of federal agencies, law and government are another major component of the city's economy. The city is also a major seaport along the United States' East Coast and is also the oldest continuously operated industrial and fishing port in the Western Hemisphere.

Some of the other important industries are financial services, especially mutual funds and insurance. Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s and has made Boston one of the top financial cities in the United States. The city is home to the regional headquarters of Bank of America and Sovereign Bank, and it is a center for venture capital firms. State Street Corporation, which specializes in asset management and custody services, is based in the city. A 2008 study ranked Boston among the top 10 cities in the world for a career in finance. Boston is a printing and publishing center — Houghton Mifflin is headquartered within the city, along with Bedford-St. Martin's Press, Beacon Press, and Little, Brown and Company. Pearson PLC publishing units also employ several hundred people in Boston. The city is home to three major convention centers—the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay, and the Seaport World Trade Center and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront.

Some of the major companies headquartered within the city are the Liberty Mutual insurance company, Gillette (now owned by Procter & Gamble), and New Balance. Boston is also home to management consulting firms The Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company, as well as the private equity group Bain Capital. The Ad Club serves as a networking company to Boston-based companies and advertising. Other major companies are located outside the city, especially along Route 128, which serves as the center of the region's high-tech industry. In 2006, Boston and its metropolitan area ranked as the fourth-largest cybercity in the United States with 191,700 high-tech jobs. Only NYC Metro, DC Metro, and Silicon Valley have larger high-tech sectors.

Boston is classified as an "incipient global city" by a 2004 study group at Loughborough University in England.

Culture

Boston shares many cultural roots with greater New England, including a dialect of the non-rhotic Eastern New England accent known as Boston English, and a regional cuisine with a large emphasis on seafood, salt, and dairy products. Irish Americans are a major influence on Boston's politics and religious institutions. Boston also has its own collection of neologisms known as Boston slang.

The city has a number of ornate theatres, including the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston Opera House, Citi Performing Arts Center, the Colonial Theater, and the Orpheum Theatre. Renowned performing-arts organizations include the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Ballet, Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Lyric Opera Company, OperaBoston, and the Handel and Haydn Society (one of the oldest choral companies in the United States). The city is also a major center for contemporary classical music, with a number of performing groups, some of which are associated with the city's conservatories and universities. There are also many major annual events such as First Night, which occurs on New Year's Eve, the annual Boston Arts Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, Italian summer feasts in the North End honoring Catholic saints, and several events during the Fourth of July period. These events include the week-long Harborfest festivities and a Boston Pops concert accompanied by fireworks on the banks of the Charles River.

Because of the city's prominent role in the American Revolution, several historic sites relating to that period are preserved as part of the Boston National Historical Park. Many are found along the Freedom Trail, which is marked by a red line of bricks embedded in the ground. The city is also home to several prominent art museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In December 2006, the Institute of Contemporary Art moved from its Back Bay location to a new contemporary building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro located in the Seaport District. The University of Massachusetts campus at Columbia Point houses the John F. Kennedy Library. The Boston Athenaeum (one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States), Boston Children's Museum, Bull & Finch Pub (whose building is known from the television show ''Cheers''), Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium are within the city.

Boston is also one of the birthplaces of the hardcore punk genre of music. Boston musicians have contributed significantly to this music scene over the years (''see also Boston hardcore''). Boston neighborhoods were home to one of the leading local third wave ska and ska punk scenes in the 1990s, led by bands such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and The Allstonians. The 1980s' hardcore punk-rock compilation ''This Is Boston, Not L.A.'' highlights some of the bands that built the genre. Several nightclubs, such as The Channel, Bunnratty's in Allston, and The Rathskeller, were renowned for showcasing both local punk-rock bands and those from farther afield. All of these clubs are now closed. Many were razed or converted during recent gentrification.

Boston has been a noted religious center from its earliest days. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston serves nearly 300 parishes and is based in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (1875) in the South End, while the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, with the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (1819) as its episcopal seat, serves just under 200 congregations. Two Protestant faiths are headquartered in Boston: Unitarian Universalism, with its headquarters on Beacon Hill, and the Christian Scientists, headquartered in Back Bay at the Mother Church (1894). The oldest church in Boston is King's Chapel, the city's first Anglican church, founded in 1686 and converted to Unitarianism in 1785. Other notable churches include Christ Church (better known as Old North Church, 1723), the oldest church building in the city, Trinity Church (1733), Park Street Church (1809), First Church in Boston (congregation founded 1630, building raised 1868), Old South Church (1874), and Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help on Mission Hill (1878).

Media

''The Boston Globe'' (owned by The New York Times Company) and the ''Boston Herald'' are two of Boston's major daily newspapers. The city is also served by other publications such as ''The Boston Phoenix'', ''Boston magazine'', ''The Improper Bostonian'', ''Boston's Weekly Dig'', and the Boston edition of ''Metro''. The ''Christian Science Monitor'', headquartered in Boston, was formerly a worldwide daily newspaper but ended publication of daily print editions in 2009, switching to continuous online and weekly magazine format publications. ''The Boston Globe'' also releases a teen publication to the city's public high schools. The newspaper ''Teens in Print'' or ''T.i.P.'' is written by the city's teens and delivered quarterly within the school year.

The city's growing Latino population has given rise to a number of local and regional Spanish-language newspapers. These include ''El Planeta'' (owned by ''The Boston Phoenix''), ''El Mundo'', and ''La Semana''. ''Siglo21'', with its main offices in nearby Lawrence, is also widely distributed.

Boston has the largest broadcasting market in New England, with the Boston radio market being the eleventh largest in the United States. Several major AM stations include talk radio WRKO 680 AM, sports/talk station WEEI 850 AM, and news radio WBZ 1030 AM. A variety of FM radio formats serve the area, as do NPR stations WBUR and WGBH. College and university radio stations include WERS (Emerson), WHRB (Harvard), WUMB (UMass Boston), WMBR (M.I.T.), WZBC (Boston College), WMFO (Tufts University), WBRS (Brandeis University), WTBU (Boston University, campus and web only), WRBB (Northeastern University) and WMLN (Curry College).

The Boston television DMA, which also includes Manchester, New Hampshire, is the seventh largest in the United States. The city is served by stations representing every major American network, including WBZ 4 and its sister station WSBK 38 (the former with CBS, the latter an independent, nonaffiliated station), WCVB 5 (ABC), WHDH 7 (NBC), WFXT 25 (Fox), WUNI 27 (Univision), WBIN 50 (MyNetworkTV), and WLVI 56 (The CW). Boston is also home to PBS station WGBH 2, a major producer of PBS programs, which also operates WGBX 44. Most Boston television stations have their transmitters in nearby Needham and Newton along the Route 128 corridor.

Sports

Boston has teams in the four major North American professional sports leagues, and has won 33 championships in these leagues, as of 2011.

The Boston Red Sox, a founding member of the American League of Major League Baseball in 1901, play their home games at Fenway Park, near Kenmore Square in the Fenway section of Boston. Built in 1912, it is the oldest sports arena or stadium in active use in the United States among the four major professional American sports leagues, encompassing Major League Baseball, the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. Boston was also the site of the first game of the first modern World Series, in 1903. The series was played between the AL Champion Boston Americans and the NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Persistent reports that the team was known in 1903 as the "Boston Pilgrims" appear to be unfounded. Boston's first professional baseball team was the Red Stockings, one of the charter members of the National Association in 1871, and of the National League in 1876. The team played under that name until 1883, under the name Beaneaters until 1911, and under the name Braves from 1912 until they moved to Milwaukee after the 1952 season. Since 1966 they have played in Atlanta as the Atlanta Braves.

The TD Garden (formerly called the FleetCenter) is adjoined to North Station and is the home of three major league teams: the Boston Blazers of the National Lacrosse League, the 2011 Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League; and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. The arena seats 18,624 for basketball games and 17,565 for ice hockey venues. The Bruins were the first American member of the National Hockey League and an Original Six franchise. The Boston Celtics were founding members of the Basketball Association of America, one of the two leagues that merged to form the NBA. The Celtics have the distinction of having won more championships than any other NBA team, with seventeen.

While they have played in suburban Foxborough since 1971, the New England Patriots were founded in 1960 as the Boston Patriots, changing their name in 1971 to better reflect its status as New England's team. A charter member of the American Football League, the team joined the National Football League in 1970. The team has won the Super Bowl three times, in 2001, 2003, and 2004. They share Gillette Stadium with the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. The Boston Breakers of Women's Professional Soccer, which formed in 2009, play their home games at Harvard Stadium in Allston.

Boston's many colleges and universities are active in college athletics. Four NCAA Division I members play their games in the city—Boston College (Atlantic Coast Conference), Boston University (America East Conference), Harvard University (Ivy League), and Northeastern University (Colonial Athletic Association). Of the four, only Boston College participates in college football at the highest level, the Football Bowl Subdivision. Harvard participates in the second-highest level, the Football Championship Subdivision. Boston University and Northeastern University do not have football teams. All but Harvard belong to the Hockey East conference; Harvard belongs to the ECAC in hockey. The hockey teams of these four universities meet every year in a four-team tournament known as the "Beanpot Tournament", which is played at the TD Garden over two Monday nights in February.

One of the best known sporting events in the city is the Boston Marathon, the 26.2 mile (42.2 km) run from Hopkinton to Copley Square in the Back Bay which is the world's oldest annual marathon run. It is run on Patriots' Day in April and always coincides with a Red Sox home baseball game that starts at 11:05 am, the only MLB game all year to start before noon local time. Another major event held annually in the city is the Head of the Charles Regatta rowing competition on the Charles River.

Club	League	Sport	Venue	Established	Championships
Boston Bruins		Hockey	TD Garden	1924	6 Stanley Cups
Boston Celtics		Basketball	TD Garden	1946	17 NBA Titles
Boston Red Sox		Baseball	Fenway Park	1901	7 World Series Titles12 AL Pennants
New England Patriots		Football	Gillette Stadium	1960	3 Super Bowl Titles6 AFC Championships
New England Revolution		Soccer	Gillette Stadium	1995	1 U.S. Open Cup 1 Superliga
Boston Blazers		Lacrosse (Indoor)	TD Garden	2008	None
! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"		Soccer	Harvard Stadium	2001	None
Boston Cannons		Lacrosse (Outdoor)	Harvard Stadium	2001	1 Steinfeld Cup
! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"		Soccer	Amesbury Sports Park	2005	1 WPSL Title
! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"		Australian Rules Football	Ipswich River Park	1997	2 National Championships
Boston Militia		Football		2008	2 Championships
New England Riptide		Softball	Martin Softball Field	2004	1 Cowles Cup

Government

Boston has a strong mayor – council government system in which the mayor is vested with extensive executive powers. The mayor is elected to a four-year term by plurality voting. The current mayor of Boston is Thomas Menino. He was elected in 1993 and was reelected in 2009 for a fifth term, the longest in Boston history. Boston City Council is elected every two years. There are nine district seats, each elected by the residents of that district through plurality voting, and four at-large seats. Each voter casts up to four votes for at-large councilors, with no more than one vote per candidate. The candidates with the four highest vote totals are elected. The president of the city council is elected by the councilors from within themselves. The school committee for the Boston Public Schools is appointed by the mayor. The Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Zoning Board of Appeals (a seven-person body appointed by the mayor) share responsibility for land-use planning.

In addition to city government, numerous commissions and state authorities—including the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Boston Public Health Commission, and the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport)—play a role in the life of Bostonians. As the capital of Massachusetts, Boston plays a major role in state politics. The city has several properties relating to the United States federal government, including the John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building and the Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building. Boston also serves as the home of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts; Boston is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (the First District of the Federal Reserve).

Federally, Boston is part of Massachusetts's 8th and 9th congressional districts, represented respectively by Mike Capuano, elected in 1998, and Stephen Lynch, elected in 2001; both are Democrats. The state's senior member of the United States Senate is Democrat John Kerry, elected in 1984. The state's junior member of the United States Senate is Republican Scott Brown was elected in 2010 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of long-time Democratic senator Ted Kennedy.

{| class=wikitable ! colspan = 6 | Voter Registration and Party Enrollment as of October 15, 2008 |- ! colspan = 2 | Party ! Number of Voters ! Percentage | Democratic | style="text-align:center;"| 209,710 | style="text-align:center;"| 55.04% | Republican | style="text-align:center;"| 27,541 | style="text-align:center;"| 7.23% | Unaffiliated | style="text-align:center;"| 140,601 | style="text-align:center;"| 36.90% | Minor Parties | style="text-align:center;"| 3,161 | style="text-align:center;"| 0.83% |- ! colspan = 2 | Total ! style="text-align:center;"| 381,013 ! style="text-align:center;"| 100% |}

Education

Boston's reputation as an intellectual center, "the Athens of America", derives in large part from the teaching and research activities of more than 100 colleges and universities located in the Greater Boston Area, with more than 250,000 students attending college in Boston and Cambridge alone. Within the city, Boston University exudes a large presence as the city's fourth-largest employer, and maintains a campus along the Charles River on Commonwealth Avenue and its medical campus in the South End. Northeastern University, another large private university, is located in the Fenway area, and is particularly known for its Business and Health Science schools and cooperative education program. Suffolk University, the third largest university in Boston, is located in the Beacon Hill area, and is known for its law school and business school. Boston College, a private Catholic Jesuit university, whose original campus was located in the South End, now straddles the Boston (Brighton)-Newton border, with planned expansions further into Brighton. Boston's only public university is the University of Massachusetts Boston, located on Columbia Point in Dorchester. Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College are the city's two public community colleges.

Boston has several smaller private colleges and universities. Emmanuel College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Simmons College, Wheelock College, and Wentworth Institute of Technology are founding members of the Colleges of the Fenway and are located adjacent to Northeastern University. New England School of Law, a small private law school located in the theater district, was originally established as America's first all female law school. Emerson College, a small private college with a strong reputation in the fields of performing arts, journalism, writing, and film, is located near Boston Common.

Boston is also home to several conservatories and art schools, including The Art Institute of Boston (Lesley University), Massachusetts College of Art, New England Institute of Art, New England School of Art and Design (Suffolk University), and the New England Conservatory (the oldest independent conservatory in the United States). Other conservatories include the Boston Conservatory, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Berklee College of Music.

Several major national universities located outside Boston have a major presence in the city. Harvard University, the nation's oldest, is located across the Charles River in Cambridge. Its business and medical schools are in Boston, and there are plans for additional expansion into Boston's Allston neighborhood. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which originated in Boston and was long known as "Boston Tech", moved across the river to Cambridge in 1916. Tufts University administers its medical and dental school adjacent to the Tufts Medical Center, a 451-bed academic medical institution that is home to both a full-service hospital for adults and the Floating Hospital for Children.

Boston Public Schools, the oldest public school system in the U.S., enrolls 57,000 students from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. The system operates 145 schools, which includes Boston Latin School (the oldest public school in the United States, established in 1635) which, along with Boston Latin Academy and John D. O'Bryant School of Math & Science, are highly prestigious public exam schools admitting students in the 7th and 9th grades only and serving grades 7–12), English High (the oldest public high school, established 1821), and the Mather School (the oldest public elementary school, established in 1639). In 2002, ''Forbes Magazine'' ranked the Boston Public Schools as the best large city school system in the country, with a graduation rate of 82%. In 2005, the student population within the school system was 45.5% Black or African American, 31.2% Hispanic or Latino, 14% White, and 9% Asian, as compared with 24%, 14%, 49%, and 8% respectively for the city as a whole. The city also has private, parochial, and charter schools and approximately 3000 students of racial minorities attend participating suburban schools through the Metropolitan Educational Opportunity Council, or METCO.

Healthcare

The Longwood Medical and Academic Area is a region of Boston with a high concentration of medical and research facilities, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Massachusetts General Hospital is near the Beacon Hill neighborhood, with the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital nearby. St. Elizabeth's Medical Center is in Brighton Center of Boston's Brighton neighborhood. New England Baptist Hospital is in Mission Hill. Boston has Veterans Affairs medical centers in the Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury neighborhoods. The Boston Public Health Commission, an agency of the Massachusetts government, oversees health concerns for Boston residents.

Many of Boston's major medical facilities are associated with universities. The facilities in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area and in Massachusetts General Hospital are well-known research medical centers affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Tufts Medical Center (formerly Tufts-New England Medical Center), located in the southern portion of the Chinatown neighborhood, is affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine. Boston Medical Center, located in the South End neighborhood, is the primary teaching facility for the Boston University School of Medicine as well as the largest trauma center in the Boston area; it was formed by the merger of Boston University Hospital and Boston City Hospital, which was the first municipal hospital in the United States.

Utilities

Water supply and sewage-disposal services are provided by the Boston Water and Sewer Commission. The Commission in turn purchases wholesale water and sewage disposal from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. The city's water comes from the Quabbin Reservoir and the Wachusett Reservoir, which are about and west of the city respectively. Boston's tap water has been ranked among the best in the country, and Boston is one of five cities in the country with tap water pure enough to be exempt from Environmental Protection Agency filtration requirements. NSTAR is the exclusive electricity distributor to the city, though due to deregulation, customers now have a choice of electric generation companies. Natural gas is distributed by National Grid plc (originally KeySpan, the successor company to Boston Gas); only commercial and industrial customers may choose an alternate natural gas supplier. Municipal steam services are provided by Veolia Energy North America and its subsidiary Trigen Energy Corporation; which comprise the original assets of the defunct Boston Heating Company.

Verizon, successor to New England Telephone, NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, and earlier, the Bell System, is the primary wired telephone service provider for the area. Phone service is also available from various national wireless companies. Cable television is available from Comcast and RCN, with broadband Internet access provided by the same companies in certain areas. A variety of DSL providers and resellers are able to provide broadband Internet over Verizon-owned phone lines. Galaxy Internet Services (GIS) has also moved to the forefront to deploy municipal WiFi Broadband Internet throughout areas of the city of Boston. Further attempts are being made by Boston's officials to increase internet access in the city with Boston being one of many US cities vying to be a future testbed for the Google Fiber high speed internet network. The city has been termed by these officials as being "Google Ready" and public forums have been created to help drive the initiative in Boston's favor.

Transportation

Logan International Airport, located in the East Boston neighborhood, handles most of the scheduled passenger service for Boston. Surrounding the city are three major general aviation relievers: Beverly Municipal Airport to the north, Hanscom Field in Bedford, to the west, and Norwood Memorial Airport to the south. T. F. Green Airport serving Providence, Rhode Island, Bradley International Airport outside of Hartford, Connecticut, and Manchester-Boston Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, also provide scheduled passenger service to the Boston area.

Downtown Boston's streets were not organized on a grid, but grew in a meandering organic pattern from early in the 17th century. They were created as needed, and as wharves and landfill expanded the area of the small Boston peninsula. Along with several rotaries, roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random. By contrast, streets in the Back Bay, East Boston, the South End, and South Boston do follow a grid system.

Boston is the eastern terminus of cross-continent I-90, which in Massachusetts runs along the Massachusetts Turnpike. Originally known as the Circumferential Highway, Route 128 carries I-95 over a portion of its route west and north of the city. U.S. 1 and I-93 run concurrently north to south through the city from Charlestown to Dorchester, joined by Massachusetts Route 3 after the Zakim Bridge over the Charles River. The elevated portion of the Central Artery, which carried these routes through downtown Boston, was replaced with the O'Neill Tunnel during the Big Dig, substantially completed in early 2006.

With nearly a third of Bostonians using public transit for their commute to work, Boston has the fourth-highest rate of public transit usage. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates what was the first underground rapid transit system in the United States and is now the fourth busiest rapid transit system in the country, having been expanded to of track, reaching as far north as Malden, as far south as Braintree, and as far west as Newton—collectively known as the "T". The MBTA also operates the nation's seventh busiest bus network, as well as water shuttles, and the nation's busiest commuter rail network outside of New York City or Chicago, totaling over , extending north to the Merrimack Valley, west to Worcester, and south to Providence.

Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Chicago lines originate at South Station and stop at Back Bay. Fast Northeast Corridor trains, which serve New York City, Washington, D.C., and points in between, also stop at Route 128 Station in the southwestern suburbs of Boston. Meanwhile, Amtrak's ''Downeaster'' service to Maine originates at North Station.

Nicknamed "The Walking City," Boston hosts more pedestrian commuters than do other comparably populated cities. Owing to factors such as the compactness of the city and large student population, 13% of the population commutes by foot, making it the highest percentage of pedestrian commuters in the country out of the major American cities. In 2011, Walk Score ranked Boston the third most walkable city in the United States.

Between 1999 and 2006, ''Bicycling'' magazine named Boston as one of the worst cities in the U.S. for cycling three times; regardless, it has one of the highest rates of bicycle commuting. In September 2007, Mayor Menino started a bicycle program called Boston Bikes with a goal of improving bicycling conditions by adding bike lanes, racks, and offering bikeshare programs. In 2008, as a consequence the same magazine put Boston on its list of its "Five for the Future" list as a "Future Best City" for biking. The bikeshare program, called Hubway, launched in late July 2011. In tandem with the program, police announced intention to step up enforcement of traffic laws, both on drivers and bikers, as part of an effort to improve safety and ameliorate the city's growing clash between bikers and motorists.

Sister cities

Boston has eight official sister cities as recognized by Sister Cities International. The date column indicates the year in which the relationship was established. Kyoto was Boston's first sister city.

! City	! Country	! Date	! References
Kyoto
Strasbourg
Barcelona
Hangzhou	People's Republic of China
Padua
Melbourne
Taipei	Republic of China (Taiwan)
Sekondi-Takoradi	Ghana

Boston also has less formal friendship or partnership relationships with an additional three cities.

! City	! Country	! Date	! References
Boston, Lincolnshire	United Kingdom
Haifa	Israel
Valladolid	Spain

See also

Boston in fiction

Boston nicknames

List of diplomatic missions in Boston

List of fictional people from Boston

List of people from Boston

List of songs about Boston

List of tallest buildings in Boston

List of television shows set in Boston

National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston, Massachusetts

Notes

References

Further reading

''Boston: A to Z'' (2000), Thomas H. O'Connor, ISBN 0-674-00310-1

''Built in Boston: City and Suburb, 1800–2000'' (2000), Douglass Shand-Tucci, ISBN 1-55849-201-1

''Lost Boston'' (1999), Mariner Books, ISBN 0-395-96610-8

''Boston: A Topographical History'', Third Enlarged Edition (2000), Belknap Press, ISBN 0-674-00268-7

''When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac'' (2004), Northeastern, ISBN 1-55553-620-4

''Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston'' (2003), Nancy S. Seasholes, ISBN 0-262-19494-5

''Boston's Secret Spaces: 50 Hidden Corners In and Around the Hub'', (2009), Globe Pequot; First edition ISBN 0-7627-5062-6

''AIA Guide to Boston, 3rd Edition: Contemporary Landmarks, Urban Design, Parks, Historic Buildings and Neighborhoods'', (2008), Michael Southworth and Susan Southworth, GPP Travel, ISBN 0-7627-4337-9

''Boston: A Pictorial Celebration'' (2006), Jonathan M. Beagle, Elan Penn (photographer), ISBN 1-4027-1977-9

''City in Time: Boston'' (2008), Jeffrey Hantover, Gilbert King (photographer), ISBN 1-4027-3300-3

''Mapping Boston'' (2001), Alex Krieger (editor), David Cobb (editor), Amy Turner (editor), Norman B. Leventhal (Foreword by) MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-61173-2

''Boston Beheld: Antique Town and Country Views'' (2008), D. Brenton Simons, University Press of New England, ISBN 1-58465-740-5

''Boston'' (2010) by Jordan Worek; photographs by Bill Horsman, Firefly Books, ISBN 1-55407-591-2

''Boston's immigrants, 1840–1925'' (2000), by Michael Price, Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series

''Boston: A Century of Progress'' (1995), by Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series

External links

City of Boston official website

Open Space Plan 2002–2006 from the City of Boston official website

Historical Maps of Boston from the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library

Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data from Tufts University, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and The Bostonian Society

Maps of income, landfill growth, public transport, and squares from Radical Cartography

Category:Cities in Massachusetts Category:County seats in Massachusetts Category:Irish American history Category:Irish-American culture Category:Populated coastal places in Massachusetts Category:Populated places established in 1630 Category:Populated places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:University towns in the United States

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