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

Littleton Common, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Littleton town. It lies in ZIP code area 01460. It stands on Wilderness Hill. The Survey maps it on the Westford quadrangle. 3,065 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 266 feet above sea level.

Littleton Common within Middlesex County

Population over time

2 figures

Littleton Common grew from 2,789 to 3,065 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	2,789
2020	3,065	+276 (+10%)

Then and now

1886 to 1988

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 Littleton Common, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Littleton Common, surveyed 1886

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.

In the 1908 county history

12,505 words on this township

The county history of 1908 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Littleton Town covers the township.

Read the chapter on Littleton Town - 12,505 words.

Fires nearby

41 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 41 fires within 5 miles of Littleton Common between 2015 and 2020, burning about 33 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
Debris and open burning	26
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Recreation and ceremony	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Natural	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
6 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 July 2015	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 July 2017	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2020	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 May 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	13 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 542 shown

Museums hold 542 specimens collected within 10 miles of Littleton Common between 1898 and 1975: 310 Animalia, 128 Plantae, 72 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Gibson, A. F. Newton 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
Boletus griseus Frost	1898	H. Webster
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Salix eriocephala Michx.	1898	E. F. Williams
Viola brittoniana Pollard	1898	Henry A. Purdie
Chrysosplenium americanum Schwein. ex Hook.	1899	E. F. Williams
Marsilea quadrifolia L.	1899	not recorded
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Cephalanthus occidentalis L.	1900	M. Rodman	Concord.
Nuphar advena (Aiton) Aiton	1900	M. Rodman	Concord.
Salix humilis var. microphylla (Andersson) Fernald	1900	M. Rodman	Concord.
Botryobasidium vagum (Berk. & M.A.Curtis) D.P.Rogers	1930	O. C. Boyd	Concord
Carex communis var. communis	1930	E. J. Palmer	Rocky banks, top of Hemlock Hill. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]

All 542 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 12 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 12 workings within 5 miles of Littleton Common: 7 past producers, 3 producers, 1 occurrence, 1 plant. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Kyanite, Graphite. 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
Fiber Matls Plant--Graniteville, Ma	Graphite	Plant
Oak Hill Andalusite Occurrence	Kyanite	Occurrence	Metamorphic
Acton Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Britt Construction	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Britt Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
D. B. Raymond Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Kennedy Brothers Acton Sand and Gra	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Nardone Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Nardone Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
San Vel Contracting Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

5 since 2007

The National Weather Service names Littleton Common in 5 storm reports between 2007 and 2025: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail. 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 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Littleton Common	$5,000	A large tree and power lines were downed in Wychwood Heights by thunderstorm winds.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Littleton Common	$3,000	Trees on New Estate Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2025	Hail	Littleton Common	-	In Littleton, quarter sized hail was reported.
March 2012	Hail	Littleton Common	-	Penny to half-dollar size hail fell in Littleton.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Littleton Common	-	Trees down on Gilsum Road.

Every storm recorded in Middlesex 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
Centre Village (historical)	0.6 miles	43
East Littleton	1.5 miles	43
New Town (historical)	1.9 miles	43
Parkerville	2.0 miles	43
Littleton	2.1 miles	41
Forge Village	2.4 miles	43
Westford	3.0 miles	43
Village of Nagog Woods	3.0 miles	43

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 Littleton Common	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2883938	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 611250. 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.