Situated directly north of Boston across the Charles River, Cambridge was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England. It started as an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town’s founders. Initially Cambridge comprised a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Cambridge Village (now Newton) in 1688, Cambridge Farms (now Lexington) in 1712 or 1713, and Little or South Cambridge (now Brighton) and West Cambridge (now Arlington) in 1807. Cambridge was incorporated as a city in 1846. The city’s commercial center began to shift from Harvard Square to Central Square, which became the city’s downtown around that 1846.
The Boston area’s many colleges and universities make it as world leader in higher education, including law, medicine, engineering and business, and the city is considered to be a global pioneer in innovation and entrepreneurship with nearly 5,000 startups.
Cambridge has world famous Universities as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lesley University and Hult International Business School. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet” owing to the high concentration of successful startups that have emerged. Kendall Square was a major software hub through the dot-com boom and today hosts offices of such technology companies as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. The biotech and pharmaceutical industries are also thriving in Cambridge, which now includes headquarters for Biogen, Genzyme, Novartis, Teva, Takeda etc.
