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

Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts

32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Oak Bluffs town. It lies in ZIP code area 02557. It stands on Lovers Rock. The Survey maps it on the Edgartown quadrangle. 5,341 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 30 feet above sea level.

Research this city

This curated hub for Dukes County, Massachusetts brings together the page's documented record links, visible map or image evidence where published, and routes to related local records.

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Oak Bluffs within Dukes County

Population over time

3 figures

Oak Bluffs grew from 4,527 to 5,341 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.

YearPeople Change
20104,527
20184,655+128 (+3%)
20205,341+686 (+15%)

Then and now

1887 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 107 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Oak Bluffs, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of Oak Bluffs, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

32 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

29 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 29 fires within 5 miles of Oak Bluffs between 2015 and 2020, burning about 16 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
Debris and open burning15
Missing data/not specified/undetermined7
Equipment and vehicle use3
Recreation and ceremony2
Fireworks1
Smoking1

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
6 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
21 September 2020Recreation and ceremony1.3 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
20 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
9 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
29 July 2020Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
14 June 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
9 May 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control5009542

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Dukes County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 14,746 shown

Museums hold 14,746 specimens collected within 10 miles of Oak Bluffs between 1828 and 1975: 8,488 Animalia, 4,109 Plantae, 1,085 Chromista, 747 Fungi, 147 Bacteria, 124 Unrecorded, 46 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A AND P STARRETT, A B Seymour, A. A. Cohen 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
A photograph of the species Tipularia discolor, not of this specimenTipularia discolor (Pursh) Nutt.1828OakesMartha's Vineyard
A photograph of the species Polysiphonia flexicaulis, not of this specimenPolysiphonia flexicaulis (Harvey) F.S.Collins1839unknownWoods Hole
A photograph of the species Ectocarpus littoralis, not of this specimenEctocarpus littoralis (L.) Lyngb.1841B. F. D. RunkWoods Hole, Nobska Point, wash
A photograph of the species Polysiphonia fibrata, not of this specimenPolysiphonia fibrata (Dillwyn) Harvey1844Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Alosa aestivalis, not of this specimenAlosa aestivalis (Mitchill, 1814)1852not recordedWood's Hole, Massachusetts.
A photograph of the species Clupea harengus, not of this specimenClupea harengus Linnaeus, 17581852not recordedWood's Hole, Massachusetts.
A photograph of the species Menidia menidia, not of this specimenMenidia menidia (Linnaeus, 1766)1852not recordedWood's Hole, Massachusetts.
A photograph of the species Prionotus evolans, not of this specimenPrionotus evolans (Linnaeus, 1766)1852not recordedWood's Hole, Massachusetts.
A photograph of the species Ulva clathrata, not of this specimenUlva clathrata (Roth) C.Agardh1852G. W. Perry
A photograph of the species Acanthurus bahianus, not of this specimenAcanthurus bahianus Castelnau, 18551899not recordedWoods Hole, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Alosa pseudoharengus, not of this specimenAlosa pseudoharengus (Wilson, 1811)1899not recordedMassachusetts, Katama Bay near Edgartown
A photograph of the species Balistes capriscus, not of this specimenBalistes capriscus Gmelin, 17891899V. EdwardsWoods Hole, Massachusetts

All 14,746 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

2 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Oak Bluffs: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 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
Dump Road PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Red Hill Pit and PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Dukes County

Storms nearby

8 since 2000

The National Weather Service names Oak Bluffs in 8 storm reports between 2000 and 2020: 4 flood, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 lightning. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
April 2017LightningOak Bluffs$1,000At 6:16 PM EST, a house was struck by lightning on Great Rock Road in Oak Bluffs.
July 2019Thunderstorm WindOak Bluffs$500In Vineyard Haven, a tree and wires were reported down on California Avenue and on Hudson Avenue.
May 2020FloodOak Bluffs-The intersection of Circuit Avenue, Narragansett Avenue, and Kennebec Avenue was flooded. An officer was on scene to assist motorists.
May 2020FloodOak Bluffs-County Road at Webaqua Road in Oak Bluffs was closed due to flooding, as was Worcester Avenue, Carol Lane at County Road, and the intersection of Norris Avenue and Wing Road.
May 2020FloodOak Bluffs-Nantucket Avenue was closed for several hours due to flooding.
July 2017FloodOak Bluffs-At 112 PM EST, a car was stuck in flood waters on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs.
November 2014Thunderstorm WindOak Bluffs-An amateur radio operator in Oak Bluffs recorded a wind gust of 62 mph on their home weather station.
May 2000HailOak Bluffs-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Dukes 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
Vineyard Highlands0.7 miles21
Harthaven0.8 miles32
Lagoon Heights1.0 miles32
Hartsville1.0 miles32
Eastville1.0 miles21
East Chop1.0 miles21
Vineyard Haven2.2 miles33
Oklahoma Heights2.7 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 Oak BluffsAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2418436The 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 616549. 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.