Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as "America's Hometown".

It was a later coincidence that, after an aborted attempt to make the 1620 trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton, the Mayflower finally set sail for America from Plymouth, England.

In 1605, French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed to Plymouth Harbor, calling it Port St. Louis.

Captain John Smith was a leader of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and he explored parts of Cape Cod Bay and is credited with naming the region "New Plimouth.

The ship was headed for the mouth of the Hudson River (which was in the notional territory of the Colony of Virginia at the time, before the establishment of New Amsterdam) but it did not go beyond Cape Cod.

[13] The Pilgrim settlers realized that they did not have a patent to settle in the region, so they signed the Mayflower Compact prior to disembarking.

It is traditionally said that the Pilgrims first set foot in America at the site of Plymouth Rock, though no historical evidence exists in support of this claim.

[17] Even greater assistance came from Samoset and Tisquantum (known as Squanto by the Pilgrims), a Native American sent by Wampanoag Chief Massasoit as an ambassador and technical adviser.

[citation needed] Squanto and Hobomok, another guide sent by Massasoit in 1621, helped the colonists set up trading posts for furs.

News reached Plymouth of the Battles of Concord and Lexington, and Cotton gathered his soldiers and marched on the town of Marshfield.

At one point, the longest ropewalk in the world was found on the Cordage Company's site on the North Plymouth waterfront, a quarter-mile (0.4 km) in length.

It became more accessible to Boston in the early 1970s with improved railroads, highways, and bus routes, and the town's inexpensive land costs and low tax rates were factors in attracting thousands of new residents.

[26] Plymouth has surpassed several Massachusetts cities in population, but it is still officially regarded as a town and continues to be governed by a board of selectmen rather than a mayor.

The town is sometimes vulnerable to Atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms, which infrequently threaten the Cape Cod region during the early autumn months.

The town is represented in the Massachusetts Senate as a part of the Plymouth and Barnstable district, which also includes Bourne, Falmouth, Kingston, Pembroke, and Sandwich.

[54] On the national level, Plymouth is a part of Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, and is currently represented by William R. Keating.

It consists of several large retail stores and various chain restaurants, and it contains one of the largest designer outlet malls on the South Shore.

Plymouth was one of two termini of the Kingston/Plymouth Old Colony Line of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's commuter rail, providing non-peak service to Braintree and as far north as Boston's South Station.

[79] P&B buses can be conveniently boarded in the Park-and-Ride Lot at Exit 13 off of Massachusetts State Route 3 adjacent to the Information Center behind the McDonald's rest stop.

The Mayflower Link Route serves various points within the town and offers a direct connection with P&B bus service at the same Exit 13 Park-and-Ride facility.

[82][83] A deviated route is provided by GATRA along the town's coastal shoreline between the neighborhoods of Manomet and Cedarville in the southeastern section of Plymouth.

[citation needed] The airport offers scheduled flight services to Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Boston and New York City.

It was later moved to Pilgrim Hall and then to a location under a granite Victorian canopy, where it was easily accessible and subject to souvenir hunters.

[89] The museum opened in 1947 as Plimoth Plantation under the guidance of Henry Hornblower II, a wealthy Boston stockbroker who grew up in Plymouth.

[90] The museum originally consisted of the Mayflower II and a "First House" exhibit in Plymouth Center, but was expanded into a large fortified town and a Native American village by 1960.

The ship is open as a museum about the Pilgrims' historic voyage from Plymouth, England, and is considered a faithful replica of the original Mayflower.

The ship was built in Brixham, England in 1956, and sailed to Plymouth across the Atlantic Ocean in 1957 by famous mariner Alan Villiers.

These include statues of Massasoit and William Bradford, and a sarcophagus containing the bones of the 51 Pilgrims who died in the winter of 1620, which rests atop Cole's Hill.

At the edge of the town on Route 80 is Parting Ways, a 94-acre (380,000 m2) site that is notable for containing the remains of four former slaves who fought in the American Revolutionary War and their families.

[98] Ellisville Harbor State Park, located in the extreme southern portion of the town, contains a natural beach inside Cape Cod Bay.