n its most restrictive sense, the North Shore includes only the coastal cities and towns in Essex County south of Cape Ann: Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, Salem, Marblehead, Swampscott, Nahant, Lynn, and Saugus. Some include the two oceanside suburbs of Suffolk County, Revere and Winthrop, also to be "North Shore." Others consider the region to take in almost all of eastern Essex County, including coastal and some inland communities all the way up the coast to the New Hampshire state line. Such a definition could stretch as far north as Newburyport and Amesbury, and as far west as Boxford. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council's North Shore Task Force, a regional planning agency, defines the North Shore as also encompassing Cape Ann and several inland communities. The southern, and more built-up, North Shore communities belong to the Inner Core Committee, a planning agency for the close-in suburbs of Boston.

Beverly Danvers Essex

Gloucester Hamilton Ipswich

Manchester Marblehead Middleton

Peabody Rockport Salem

Swampscott Topsfield Wenham

The North Shore has a variety of attractions for tourists and New Englanders alike. A few of them include the Peabody Essex Museum, the Salem Witch Museum, the Cabot Street Cinema Theatre, the Endicott Pear tree, Crane Beach, the Man at the Wheel Statue in Gloucester, the Myopia Hunt Club, Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea, the Frost Folk Art Museum, and the Topsfield Fair to name a few.