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

Salem, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Salem City. It lies in ZIP code area 01970. It stands on South River. The Survey maps it on the Salem quadrangle. 44,480 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 26 feet above sea level.

Salem within Essex County

Population over time

3 figures

Salem grew from 40,407 to 44,480 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.

Year	People	Change
2000	40,407
2010	41,340	+933 (+2%)
2020	44,480	+3,140 (+8%)

Then and now

1888 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 97 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Salem, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Salem, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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

2 photographs,

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.

Jonathan Corwin House, 310 Essex Street, Salem, Essex County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Lindall-Barnard-Andrews House (Fence), 393 Essex Street, Salem, Essex County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

58 since 2006

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 58 fires within 5 miles of Salem between 2006 and 2020, burning about 186 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 3 were 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	22
Smoking	9
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Debris and open burning	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Arson/incendiarism	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Fireworks	1
Natural	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
5 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BEVERLY
4 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BEVERLY
27 September 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
27 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 September 2020	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	PEABODY
9 August 2016	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	LYNN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Essex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 9,227 shown

Museums hold 9,227 specimens collected within 10 miles of Salem between 1800 and 1975: 3,759 Plantae, 2,868 Animalia, 1,043 Fungi, 900 Chromista, 457 Unrecorded, 152 Bacteria, 48 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A B. Proper, A H HIGGINSON, A. A. Eaton 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
Rhodocollybia prolixa var. distorta (Fr.) Antonín, Halling & Noordel.	1800	R. B. Mackintosh	Peabody
Erysiphaceae	1803	A. B. Seymour
Brasenia schreberi J.F.Gmel.	1821	not recorded	Pleasant Pond, Wenham, Mass.
Lecanora tartarea (L.) Ach.	1839	E. Tuckerman	Manchester
Ochrolechia yasudae Vainio	1839	Tuckerman, E.	[USA] Manchester, Massachusetts.
Desmarestia viridis (O.F.Müll.) J.V.Lamour.	1841	C. E. Pease	Marblehead
Polysiphonia urceolata (Lightfoot ex Dillwyn) Greville	1841	F. S. Collins	Revere Beach, Revere, MA
Splachnum ampullaceum Hedw.	1843	A. Gray; W. S. Sullivant	Manchester
Carex caryophyllea Latourr.	1847	C. Dewey	Salem
Carex muhlenbergii Kunth ex Boott	1847	F. M. B. Boott
Ceramium rubrum C.Agardh	1848	E. Hodges
Cladophora rupestris (L.) Kütz.	1848	H. W. W. Bailey	Little Nahant, MA

All 9,227 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

9 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Salem: 5 plants, 1 unknown, 1 producer, 1 occurrence. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Zirconium, Iron, Thorium. 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
(Facility) Travers Labs Refinery--Beverly, Ma.	Mercury, Silver, Gold, REE	Plant
Hale Engineering Co--Danvers, Ma.	Tungsten	Plant
Saugus Deposit	Iron	Occurrence
Thiokol Ventron Div--Danvers, Ma.	Thorium	Plant
Thiokol Ventron Div--Beverly, Ma.	Zirconium	Plant
Ventron Corp--Beverly, Ma.	Zirconium	Past Producer
Swampscott Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Swampscott Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown
Swampscott Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Essex County

Storms nearby

10 since 1993

The National Weather Service names Salem in 10 storm reports between 1993 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flood, 1 flash 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
October 2011	Flash Flood	North Salem	$2,500,000	Numerous streets were closed due to flooding. In addition, numerous vehicles were reported stuck in water on roads throughout Peabody; occupants had to be rescued and vehicles towed. Parts of Route 128 were impassable due to flooding. The Peabody police station was flooded, damaging training rooms, telephones, three police cruisers, and two motorcycles. Several houses were flooded near the intersection of Washington and Granite Streets. The Lahey Clinic was flooded with 4 to 6 feet of water in the basement and several inches of water in the 1st floor hallways. The fire chief estimated that at least 100 houses and 40 businesses were damaged. In addition, at least 100 basements throughout town were flooded. Flooding was extensive enough that schools were closed.
August 2008	Flood	Salem	$25,000	In Salem, Swampscott Road was closed due to flooding and three cars were stuck in floodwaters on Highland Avenue. Cars were stuck in floodwaters on Stettson Road in Swampscott. In Marblehead, West Shore Drive was impassable and closed from Cornell Road to Lafayette Street. In addition, a building was flooded on Salem Street and a house was flooded on Smith Street.
October 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	North Salem	$10,000	A tree was downed onto a house on North Street by thunderstorm winds.
July 2023	Flood	North Salem	-	In Salem, Pearl St bridge was closed due to flooding.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Salem	-	Trees down on Nichol Street.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Salem	-	Two trees down in Salem Willows Park. Numerous dime-size hail stones fell at approximately 1845 EST in West Peabody with one or two stones just under the size of a quarter as measured by the son of a NWS meteorologist. Rainfall in Peabody was 1.68 inches.
May 2006	Hail	Salem	-	no account filed
May 2006	Hail	Salem	-	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Salem	-	no account filed
July 1996	Hail	Salem	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Essex County

Newspapers printed here

0 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues, 0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

Newspaper	Published
The American Gazette, Or, the Constitutional Journal	1776 to 1776

What the paper printed

5,715 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 4 issues spread across its run from 1776 to 1776, 5,715 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.

These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.

Issue	Paper	Length
1776-06-18	The American Gazette, Or, the Constitutional Journal	1,615 words
1776-06-19	The American Gazette, Or, the Constitutional Journal	975 words
1776-06-25	The American Gazette, Or, the Constitutional Journal	2,037 words
1776-07-09	The American Gazette, Or, the Constitutional Journal	1,088 words

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
South Salem	0.6 miles	42
North Salem	0.7 miles	42
West Town Landing	1.5 miles	40
Peabody	1.8 miles	42
Salem Neck	1.8 miles	40
Rial Side	2.1 miles	42
Danversport	2.4 miles	42
Marblehead	2.5 miles	40

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 Salem	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q54140	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 614337. 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.