Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the south-eastern corner of Massachusetts in the north-eastern United States. Named in 1602 by the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold — making it the ninth-oldest English place-name in the country — the Cape forms the southern boundary of the Gulf of Maine and stretches from Provincetown in the north-east to Woods Hole in the south-west.
Coextensive with Barnstable County and divided into fifteen towns, Cape Cod has been defined by its maritime character for centuries. Since 1914 the Cape Cod Canal has separated most of the peninsula from the mainland, cutting seven miles across its base and connected by the Sagamore and Bourne highway bridges plus a railway bridge. The canal, the peninsula’s ample Atlantic beaches and its legacy as a historic seafaring region draw heavy summer tourism. The Cape’s position jutting into the ocean has long made it a landmark for mariners and a nexus for fishing, whaling and coastal exploration along the New England shore.
