Massachusetts has 4 designated Wild and Scenic Rivers protecting 192.8 miles across 31 segments in 1 county, making it one of the more river-rich states in New England under the federal program. The National Park Service administers virtually all of the designated mileage, including the complex multi-tributary Westfield, the suburban Sudbury-Assabet-Concord corridor west of Boston, the Taunton in the southeast, and the cross-border Nashua-Squannacook-Nissitissit system reaching into New Hampshire. Click any segment on the map below for classification, mileage, and agency details.

Wild and Scenic Rivers in Massachusetts at a Glance

Massachusetts was relatively late to the federal Wild and Scenic program compared to western states, but the rivers that were eventually designated reflect the state’s unusual mix of colonial history, suburban growth pressure, and genuine ecological richness. The Westfield River, with its 20 segments threading through the hill towns of western Massachusetts, is one of the most segment-dense WSR systems in New England. The Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord rivers were made famous by Thoreau, who paddled their confluences and wrote about them extensively — their designation formally recognized both the literary heritage and the persistent wildlife values of a watershed surrounded by Boston’s outer suburbs.

Classification Breakdown

The overwhelming majority of Massachusetts’s designated mileage is Scenic — corridors accessible in places by road but with largely undeveloped shorelines. Only a single Wild segment exists in the state (1.3 miles), reflecting the realities of a densely settled landscape. Recreational segments cover the most accessible, road-adjacent reaches such as the lower Concord and portions of the Taunton. Wild segments require primitive conditions and generally trail-only access — rare in New England east of the Berkshires.

Managing Agencies

The National Park Service dominates the management picture in Massachusetts, which is typical for eastern states where the NPS administers partnership wild and scenic rivers through dedicated river offices rather than on public lands it owns. The joint NPS/FWS segment reflects the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord corridor’s overlap with Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most productive freshwater wetland wildlife areas in New England.

Longest Designated Rivers in Massachusetts

The Westfield is the longest and most varied of Massachusetts’s designated rivers, rising in the Berkshire highlands and descending through a mosaic of forest and farmland before entering the Connecticut River valley. Its 20 segments carry all three classification types, with the upper reaches in Savoy and Windsor earning Scenic and Wild status while the lower stretches near Westfield city are Recreational. The Nashua-Squannacook-Nissitissit system, designated across both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, protects a connected corridor of cold-water tributaries that support one of the best remaining wild brook-trout populations in the region.

Visiting the Designated Reaches

The Westfield offers the most varied paddling in the state’s WSR system — the upper North Branch above Cummington runs through a tight forested gorge, while the mainstem below Huntington broadens into Class I-II water suitable for canoes and kayaks from spring through early summer. The Sudbury-Assabet-Concord corridor is best explored by canoe: the 18-mile Concord River paddle from Egg Rock to the Merrimack, passing through Great Meadows NWR, is a classic flatwater route accessible at multiple town landings. The Taunton, Massachusetts’s only north-south-flowing major river, winds through cranberry bog country in Plymouth and Bristol counties and is best known to anglers for its spring run of American shad and river herring — part of a restoration effort that removed several mill dams over the past two decades. The Nashua-Squannacook-Nissitissit corridor in the north-central part of the state offers streamside hiking on the Squannacook River Wildlife Management Area trails near Townsend, with dense stands of riparian silver maple and excellent brook-trout fishing in the upper reaches.

Maps for Neighboring States

For river systems across state lines, see our Wild and Scenic Rivers maps for neighboring states: Connecticut (which shares the Wood-Pawcatuck watershed and hosts the Farmington and Housatonic), New Hampshire (home to the Wildcat Brook and the NH portion of the Nashua-Squannacook-Nissitissit), Rhode Island (the Wood-Pawcatuck system), and Vermont (the Missisquoi and Trout rivers). New York has the Delaware River designation along its southern border. For the full national picture, visit our US Wild and Scenic Rivers map.

Data Sources

River segment geometry, classification, mileage, and managing-agency attributes come from the US Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse, specifically the National Wild and Scenic River Segments dataset jointly maintained by the USFS, NPS, BLM, and US Fish and Wildlife Service. Source service: USFS EDW Wild Scenic River Segments. Authoritative national index: rivers.gov. State recreation and fish-management context: Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Massachusetts Office of Outdoor Recreation, and the relevant NPS partnership river offices.