With almost 170,000 residents, the so-called “Heart of the Commonwealth” is the state’s second-largest city. It is located 45 miles west of Boston on hills overlooking the Blackstone Valley. English settlers arrived here in the 1670s, naming the settlement Quinsigamond Plantation. The name was changed to Worcester in 1684. It has a long industrial history going back to the opening of the Blackstone Canal in 1828, which linked the city to Providence, Rhode Island. From 1906 to 1961, the city was home to the Worcester Lunch Car Company, which produced more than 650 diners. Worcester is still known for its selection of vintage diners.

The city is now a financial, commercial, industrial, cultural, and educational hub for central Massachusetts. Its centers of higher education include Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester State College, Assumption College, the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and Clark University, where rocket pioneer Robert H.

Goddard was a professor. Goddard fired his first rocket in nearby Auburn in 1926. Worcester is also home to many biotechnology firms.

Places of interest include the Worcester Art Museum, which has more than 35,000 objects representing 5,000 years of art and culture; the Higgins Armory Museum, which has exhibits of weapons and armor from medieval and Renaissance Europe, feudal Japan, and ancient Greece and Rome; the Ecotarium, a 60-acre environmental museum and wildlife center; and the Worcester Historical Museum.

Rail service is available between Boston and Worcester and air service is available at Worcester Municipal Airport. Several interstate highways and many state highways access Worcester as well.