Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Dedham, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Dedham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02026. It stands on Lowder Brook. The Survey maps it on the Norwood quadrangle. 25,364 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 121 feet above sea level.

Dedham within Norfolk County

Population over time

2 figures

Dedham grew from 24,729 to 25,364 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	24,729
2020	25,364	+635 (+3%)

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Dedham, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Dedham, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Photographs

3 photographs,

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

Caryl Parsonage, Dedham Street, Dover, Norfolk County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Allin Congregational Church, High Street, Dedham, Norfolk County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Norfolk Manufacturing Company Cotton Mill, 90 Milton Street, Dedham, Norfolk County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

164 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 164 fires within 5 miles of Dedham between 2003 and 2020, burning about 428 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	87
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	46
Smoking	24
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Debris and open burning	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	WESTWOOD
4 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
3 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
3 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
23 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 September 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
17 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 15,299 shown

Museums hold 15,299 specimens collected within 10 miles of Dedham between 1815 and 1975: 5,905 Plantae, 4,742 Fungi, 4,066 Animalia, 292 Protozoa, 192 Chromista, 65 Unrecorded, 37 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, ? ex Herb. W.G. Farlow and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	R. Thaxter	Stony Brook
Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald	1900	A. P. Chute
Corydalis Vent.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Worcester turnpike, 6 miles from Boston.
Corylus L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridge Port, 2 miles from Boston.
Ericaceae	1815	Boott	Boston, U.S.A.
Hepatica Mill.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Sweet Auburn.
Limonium vulgare Mill.	1815	not recorded	On Cragies Road [=near Cragies Bridge], 1 1/2 miles from Boston.
Mollugo verticillata L.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Boston.
Nuphar Sm.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Worcester Turnpike 6 miles from Boston.
Populus L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridgeport, 1 mile from Boston.
Ranunculus L.	1815	not recorded	Thicket at South Boston.
Salix L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridge, 3 1/2 miles from Boston.

All 15,299 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

7 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Dedham: 3 past producers, 2 producers, 2 unknowns. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Hopkinton Quarry	Granite	Producer
Walpole Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
West Roxbury Crushed Stone Operatio	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown
Canton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Canton Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Greendale Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Town of Needham	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

6 since 1999

The National Weather Service names Dedham in 6 storm reports between 1999 and 2023: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning, 1 heavy rain, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2002	Lightning	Dedham	$95,000	no account filed
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Dedham	$5,000	Numerous tree limbs were downed throughout town, one of them onto a house.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Dedham	$1,300	In Dedham, trees and wires were down on Lancaster Road.
July 2023	Flash Flood	East Dedham	-	In Dedham, the intersection of Milton and River St was flooded.
April 2003	Heavy Rain	Dedham	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Dedham	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Norfolk County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
East Dedham	0.7 miles	46
Oakdale	0.7 miles	41
Endicott	0.8 miles	41
Ashcroft	1.1 miles	41
Greenlodge	1.4 miles	41
Readville Manor	1.5 miles	41
Islington	1.8 miles	41
Dedham Island	1.8 miles	46

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Dedham	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1758615	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612438. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.