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

Peru, Massachusetts

37 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Peru town. It lies in ZIP code area 01235. It stands on Peru Hill. The Survey maps it on the Peru quadrangle. 814 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 2,064 feet above sea level.

Peru within Berkshire County

Population over time

2 figures

Peru fell from 847 to 814 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
2010847
2020814-33 (-4%)

Then and now

1886 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 111 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Peru, surveyed 1997
Topographic sheet of Peru, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

37 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

1 since 2016

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Peru between 2016 and 2016, burning about 1 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 burning1

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
17 April 2016Debris and open burning1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 697 shown

Museums hold 697 specimens collected within 10 miles of Peru between 1867 and 1975: 441 Animalia, 156 Fungi, 94 Plantae, 6 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. K. Harrison, A. K. Harrison, Florence, A. W. Cheever 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
Specimen of Bombus ternarius Say, 1837Bombus ternarius Say, 18371898[Not Stated]Hinsdale
A photograph of the species Homalia jamesii, not of this specimenHomalia jamesii Schimp.1867unknownWaconah Falls State Park
A photograph of the species Homalia trichomanoides, not of this specimenHomalia trichomanoides (Hedw.) Schimp.1867E. C. Howe
A photograph of the species Warnstorfia fluitans, not of this specimenWarnstorfia fluitans (Hedw.) Loeske1876Piper
A photograph of the species Spinus tristis, not of this specimenSpinus tristis tristis (Linnaeus, 1758)1884not recordedPittsfield
unnamed1889A.B. Seymour
A photograph of the species Dryopteris cristata, not of this specimenDryopteris cristata (L.) A.Gray1900C. HarriotBerkshire
A photograph of the species Dryopteris boottii, not of this specimenDryopteris × boottii (Tuck.) Underw.1900C. HarriotBerkshire
A photograph of the species Choreutis pariana, not of this specimenChoreutis pariana (Clerck, 1759)1923not recordedPittsfield
A photograph of the species Tubercularia vulgaris, not of this specimenTubercularia vulgaris Tode1926Scherer C. M.Dalton
A photograph of the species Auricularia auricula, not of this specimenAuricularia auricula (L.) Underw.1927Hansbrough J. R.Hinsdale
A photograph of the species Dasyscyphus calycinus, not of this specimenDasyscyphus calycinus (Schumach.) Fuckel1927Hansbrough J. R.; Skellenger L. E.Hinsdale near Washington Line

All 697 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

3 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Peru: 2 occurrences, 1 prospect. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Talc-Soapstone, Emery. 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
Northern Chester Emery MineEmeryOccurrenceEmery
Talc ProspectTalc-SoapstoneOccurrenceMetamorphic
Talc ProspectTalc-SoapstoneProspect

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

3 since 1994

The National Weather Service names Peru in 3 storm reports between 1994 and 2008: 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2008Thunderstorm WindPeru-An apparent microburst occurred in the vicinity of Middlefield Road in Peru during a thunderstorm. Several hundred trees, many in a Nature Conservancy, were reported downed or snapped due to strong winds, with peak gusts estimated at 80 to 100 mph.
August 1994Thunderstorm WindPeru-Trees were reported blown down.
June 1995HailPeru-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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
Camp Danbee1.6 miles37
Camp Ashmere1.8 miles37
Camp Lenore2.5 miles37
Camp Taconic2.6 miles37
East Windsor4.2 miles35
Hinsdale4.2 miles37
Camp Wyoma4.3 miles37
Beechwood Estates4.3 miles37

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 PeruAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q614143The 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 607936. 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.