Category:North America/United States of America/Massachusetts/Springfield/

Coordinates: 42°06′05″N 72°35′25″W 42.10139, -72.59028

Springfield

Springfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.In the 2000 census, the city population was 154,082. It is the third largest city in Massachusetts and fourth largest in New England (behind Boston, Worcester, and Providence). Springfield holds two nicknames The City of Homes and The City of Firsts.Historically the first Springfield in the United States, it is also the largest city in Western Massachusetts and the Pioneer Valley.Springfield is notable as birthplace of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, as well as the city in which James Naismith invented basketball. It is home to the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Springfield Falcons AHL hockey team. It also holds the western world's largest collection of Chinese cloisonn at the G.W. Vincent Smith Art Museum.The Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of three counties - Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin. As of the 2000 census, the Springfield MSA had a population of 680,014 (though a July 1, 2007 estimate placed the population at 682,657). It is also part of a larger metropolitan area known as the Northeast megalopolis.In an economic and cultural partnership with Hartford, Connecticut, the Springfield-Hartford region constitutes New England's Knowledge Corridor - the second-largest concentration of institutions of higher learning in New England, after Greater Boston.^[1]

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