The North Shore is a region in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, loosely defined as the sea coast between Boston and New Hampshire.

The North Shore landscape includes seaports, fishing villages, and rocky coastline dotted with marshes and wetlands, as well as beaches and natural harbors.

It may include only those communities between Boston and Cape Ann, as defined by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (whose purview does not go beyond Greater Boston);[1] or the larger part of Essex County, including parts of the Merrimack Valley, as defined by the North Shore Chamber of Commerce.

Peabody had the largest concentration of tanneries in the world; and Beverly and Marblehead often dispute over which town was the birthplace of the American Navy.

Newburyport was well known for producing clipper ships and for a brief time in history was the richest city in the Union; it is also the birthplace of the United States Coast Guard.