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

Eastham, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1993. It stands in Eastham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02642. It stands on Skiff Hill. The Survey maps it on the Orleans quadrangle. 5,752 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 49 feet above sea level.

Eastham within Barnstable County

Population over time

3 figures

Eastham grew from 5,453 to 5,752 between 2000 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.

YearPeople Change
20005,453
20104,956-497 (-9%)
20205,752+796 (+16%)

Then and now

1887 to 1993

The same ground, surveyed 106 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Eastham, surveyed 1993
Topographic sheet of Eastham, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

33 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.

Fires nearby

79 since 1993

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 79 fires within 5 miles of Eastham between 1993 and 2020, burning about 46 acres in total. 7 started naturally. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined31
Equipment and vehicle use15
Debris and open burning10
Recreation and ceremony9
Natural7
Fireworks3
Smoking2
Arson/incendiarism1
Misuse of fire by a minor1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
3 September 2018Naturalunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1946
24 September 2004Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreEWTWNLINE
22 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 1995Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreMAURICES
5 August 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1520
3 August 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Barnstable County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 2,569 shown

Museums hold 2,569 specimens collected within 10 miles of Eastham between 1819 and 1975: 1,308 Animalia, 931 Plantae, 158 Fungi, 68 Bacteria, 60 Chromista, 44 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. R. Alan Hodgdon Hodgdon, A. R. Hodgdon, A. R. Hodgdon; G. B. Rossbach 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Laminaria caperata Bachelot de la Pylaie, 18241819Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Pseudopleuronectes americanus, not of this specimenPseudopleuronectes americanus (Walbaum, 1792)1853Atwood, Nathaniel E.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Ammodytes americanus, not of this specimenAmmodytes americanus DeKay, 18421859Weinland, David FriedrichCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Pomatomus saltatrix, not of this specimenPomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus, 1766)1859Ordway, A.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Stenotomus chrysops, not of this specimenStenotomus chrysops (Linnaeus, 1766)1860William BemisCape Cod Bay, Wellfleet Harbor
A photograph of the species Paralichthys oblongus, not of this specimenParalichthys oblongus (Mitchill, 1815)1862MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Carex foenea, not of this specimenCarex foenea Willd.1864W. P. AlcottWellfleet
A photograph of the species Morone americana, not of this specimenMorone americana (Gmelin, 1789)1864MCZ teamCape Cod, rivers, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Scophthalmus aquosus, not of this specimenScophthalmus aquosus (Mitchill, 1815)1864MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Alosa mediocris, not of this specimenAlosa mediocris (Mitchill, 1814)1871MCZ teamBrewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Peprilus triacanthus, not of this specimenPeprilus triacanthus (Peck, 1804)1871Blake, John HenryCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Raja eglanteria, not of this specimenRaja eglanteria Bosc, 18001871MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts

All 2,569 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

1 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Eastham: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
M F Roach Company PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Barnstable County

Storms nearby

8 since 2001

The National Weather Service names Eastham in 8 storm reports between 2001 and 2018: 4 lightning, 1 hail, 1 storm surge/tide, 1 thunderstorm wind. The reports record 4 injuries. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2012LightningEastham2 hurtA 62 year old woman and a 4 year old girl were struck by lightning while getting out of a car. The woman was holding an umbrella for the girl when lightning struck. Both were transported to Cape Cod Hospital for evaluation but were released with no injuries.
May 2001LightningEastham2 hurtno account filed
June 2006LightningEastham$100,000no account filed
August 2017Flash FloodNorth Eastham$50,000At 1138 PM EST, Cable Road near Nauset Regional High School in Eastham was flooded and impassable. At 1154 PM EST, there were multiple reports of flooded basements on Jennie Clark Road. There were also reports of flooded basements on Kingswood Drive and Cestaro Way. At 1204 AM EST a car on Gail's Way was trapped in flood waters in a road washout. At 1252 AM EST there was three feet of water on Old Orchard Road near Kettle Hole Road. At 111 AM EST, two cars were trapped in flood waters on Brackett Road. At 6 AM EST, a Cocorahs observer in Eastham reported a storm total rainfall of 8.25 inches.
November 2002Storm Surge/TideEastham$15,000no account filed
August 2018LightningEastham$5,000At 9:48 AM EST, lightning struck a house on Mill Road in Eastham.
August 2008Thunderstorm WindEastham$5,000Trees and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds, including some trees in the Cape Cod National Seashore.
July 2001HailEastham-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Barnstable 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
First Encounter Beach1.7 miles33
Kingsbury Beach1.7 miles33
Thumpertown Beach1.8 miles33
Weeset1.9 miles33
Campground Landing2.3 miles33
Tonset2.3 miles33
Nauset Heights2.4 miles33
North Eastham2.6 miles33

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 EasthamAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2303096The 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 616854. 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.