Cape Cod

A peninsula reaching into the Atlantic from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, coextensive with Barnstable County and running from Provincetown in the northeast to Woods Hole in the southwest. Bartholomew Gosnold coined the name in 1602, which makes it the ninth-oldest English place name in the country. Fifteen towns divide it, several made up of several named villages each. Since 1914 the Cape Cod Canal has cut seven miles across the base, separating most of it from the mainland. It forms the southern boundary of the Gulf of Maine.