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

Dover, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Dover town. It lies in ZIP code area 02030. It stands on Noanet Brook. The Survey maps it on the Medfield quadrangle. 2,452 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 174 feet above sea level.

Dover within Norfolk County

Population over time

2 figures

Dover grew from 2,265 to 2,452 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	2,265
2020	2,452	+187 (+8%)

Then and now

1887 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Dover, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Dover, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

43 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

1 photograph,

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

Fires nearby

110 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 110 fires within 5 miles of Dover between 2015 and 2020, burning about 49 acres in total. 1 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	47
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	38
Debris and open burning	14
Smoking	5
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Natural	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Other causes	1

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
9 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DOVER
6 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
26 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
14 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 12,553 shown

Museums hold 12,553 specimens collected within 10 miles of Dover between 1805 and 1975: 5,504 Animalia, 3,424 Plantae, 3,241 Fungi, 204 Protozoa, 109 Chromista, 50 Unrecorded, 21 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, ? ex Herb. W.G. Farlow, A C Gibson 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
Hieracium venosum L.	1900	E. F. Williams	Blue Hills Reservation
Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 1831	1900	not recorded	Sherborn
Margaritifera margaritifera (Linnaeus, 1758)	1805	Bryant, O.	Wash Brook, So. Sudbury, Mass.
Corydalis Vent.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Worcester turnpike, 6 miles from Boston.
Corylus L.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Worcester Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston.
Nuphar Sm.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Worcester Turnpike 6 miles from Boston.
Sassafras J.Presl	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Worcester Turnpike, 6 miles from Boston.
Thalictrum L.	1815	not recorded	Worcester Turnpike.
Viola L.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Worcester Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston, U.S.A. [Identical locality information is written on the reverse of the sheet.]
Alnus Mill.	1816	not recorded	Brighton, 4 miles from Boston.
Aquilegia L.	1816	not recorded	Brighton 3½ miles from Boston.

All 12,553 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 Dover: 5 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Granite. 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
Needham Pit	Stone	Past Producer
Walpole Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Greendale Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Hi-Way Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Town of Natick	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Town of Needham	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

7 since 2002

The National Weather Service names Dover in 7 storm reports between 2002 and 2021: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 2 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
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Dover	$5,000	A large tree and wires on Farm Street in Dover were downed by thunderstorm winds.
April 2007	Flood	Dover	$5,000	Minor flooding occurred along the Charles River through Dover. A crest of 5.7 feet was recorded at 445 am on the 20th (flood stage is 5 feet).
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Dover	$3,000	Large limbs and wires throughout town were downed by thunderstorm winds, including on Center Street.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Dover	$500	In Dover, a tree was down at the intersection of Haven Street and Church Street.
May 2009	Hail	Dover	-	Nickel to quarter sized hail fell in Dover.
June 2006	Flood	Dover	-	Charles River
May 2002	Hail	Dover	-	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
Charles River Village	1.5 miles	46
Charles River Station	1.6 miles	46
Glenridge	2.0 miles	43
Needham Junction	2.7 miles	46
Farm Street Station	2.9 miles	43
Wellesley	3.5 miles	46
Harding	3.6 miles	43
Needham	3.7 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 Dover	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5302460	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 611917. 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.