Map of Harwich, Massachusetts in 2026

Harwich is seven villages on the south side of the Cape, from the bogs of North Harwich to the three harbors of Harwich Port and Long Pond up on the Brewster line. This map prints Main Street, Pleasant Lake Avenue, Orleans Road, Orleans-Harwich Road, Brewster-Chatham Road and Sisson Road, with Long Pond, Andrews Pond, Bells Neck and the Town Forest. Click here to purchase a print of this map for your wall.

Harwich is in Barnstable County.

KNOWOL made this map in 2026 from public survey data and gave it the look of an old atlas. United States Geological Survey elevation data gives the land its relief, and the streets and the town line come from the Census Bureau. Harwich covers 33.1 square miles, more than a third of it water, on the south side of Cape Cod facing Nantucket Sound. It had 13,440 people at the 2020 census, and the town page says that number grows to roughly 37,000 in the summer season.

From Yarmouth’s edge to the Harwiches

The Town of Harwich’s recorded history, in the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s list, dates European settlement to 1670, when the land was part of Yarmouth. Harwich was incorporated as a town in 1694, and at first it took in the lands of today’s Brewster. It was named for the English town of Harwich, and the town remains part of Barnstable County today. Its villages, sometimes called the Harwiches, are West Harwich, North Harwich, East Harwich, South Harwich, Harwich Center, Harwich Port and Pleasant Lake. On September 14, 1994, the town celebrated its tricentennial, 300 years to the day after its founding.

Harwich Center was first known as Broadbrooks, after a family that settled part of it, later shortened its name to Brooks and put up at least eight of the village’s buildings. Its village center sits where Main Street meets Pleasant Lake Avenue. The Harwich Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1975, runs along Main and Parallel streets from the cemetery to Brooks Park, where millstones from Ebenezer Broadbrooks’s mill mark the site of his 1732 homestead. Sidney Brooks founded Brooks Academy in 1844, and the village’s most prominent building is the First Congregational Church of 1832. In 1975 a time capsule was buried in front of Brooks Academy, due to be opened in 2075.

Cranberries, decoys and a branded hand

Early Harwich lived by fishing and farming. The town page says Harwich is considered by some to be the birthplace of the cranberry industry, with the first commercial operation opened in 1846, and many bogs remain, especially in North Harwich. Since 1976 the town has held the Harwich Cranberry Festival each September, noted for its fireworks.

A. Elmer Crowell, born in 1862, was a master decoy carver from East Harwich who specialized in shorebirds, waterfowl and miniatures. In 1876 he built a gunning stand on Pleasant Lake, where his father owned land. His page says his decoys are consistently regarded as some of the finest ever made, and his preening pintail drake and Canada goose share the world record for a decoy at $1.13 million. His barn workshop was moved near the Harwich Historical Society and is open as a museum. Beside the same society stands a plaque to Jonathan Walker, a Harwich-born fishing captain who in 1844 tried to carry seven people escaping slavery from Florida to freedom in the British West Indies. He was caught, tried and branded on the hand, and became a national hero. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote the poem “The Branded Hand” about him.

Harbors, ponds and ballfields

Harwich Port, on Nantucket Sound, takes its motto “Three Harbors, One Port” from Saquatucket, Wychmere and Allen harbors. Long Pond, which the town page calls the largest lake on the Cape, is shared with Brewster and doubles as a landing place for seaplanes, and the village of Pleasant Lake sits at its southwest corner. The Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod Baseball League play at Whitehouse Field in Harwich Center, and more than 100 of the club’s players have gone on to the major leagues. The Cape Cod Rail Trail also crosses the town, with its rotary in North Harwich near Main Street. Other names tied to Harwich include John Kendrick, a maritime fur trader who was one of the first Americans to visit the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and China, and Joseph N. Welch, the Army counsel who asked Senator Joseph McCarthy, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” The politician Tip O’Neill kept a vacation home near Bank Street Beach and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

See it on a wall

The Harwich map as a framed print. Swipe for more.

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Around the map

Start with East Harwich. Follow Sisson Road, Brewster-Chatham Road, Orleans Road, Orleans-Harwich Road, Main Street and Pleasant Lake Avenue across town, then look outward toward West Harwich, Harwich Port, North Harwich, Pleasant Lake and South Harwich. Andrews Pond, Long Pond, the Town Forest, Bells Neck and Ebenezar Weekes Island are all printed on the map, and each of those names is right there on the artwork.

The Harwich map makes a fine addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of a Cape Cod cranberry town. It’s made for people who call Harwich home, from East Harwich to Harwich Port, and it shows the town as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Harwich, Massachusetts map.

Sources

• Harwich, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
• Harwich Historic District, Wikipedia
• Harwich Center, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
• Harwich Port, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
• North Harwich, Massachusetts, Wikipedia
• A. Elmer Crowell, Wikipedia
• Jonathan Walker (abolitionist), Wikipedia
• Harwich Mariners, Wikipedia
• City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (archived copy)