The working waterfront still makes New Bedford one of the busiest fishing ports in the country, especially for scallops, after a fortune made on whale oil in the 1800s. The cobblestone downtown and the waterfront feel genuine rather than staged, and the New Bedford Whaling Museum is the place to start. Herman Melville sailed from here, and every January the museum hosts a marathon reading of Moby-Dick.
The city has about 100,000 people and a strong Portuguese and Cape Verdean character you can taste in the restaurants along Acushnet Avenue. In late July the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament draws huge crowds. You can catch a ferry to Martha's Vineyard, walk Fort Phoenix in nearby Fairhaven, or stroll the second-Thursday art night. New Bedford costs less than Boston, though prices are climbing as buyers get priced out of the bigger cities. Violent crime runs above the national average, mostly in some North End and Acushnet Avenue blocks at night, and you should lock your car. Expect nor'easters, fog and a hurricane season.
Cities with a similar character, anywhere on the site.
Out of 10. Open any score to see how it’s worked out. “Data-based” scores come from published figures; “Hey! En Route estimate” scores are worked out from what we know about the city; “Hey! En Route rating” scores were set by our editors.
- Known as
- The Whaling City; City That Lit the World (whale oil); Scallop capital of the US and the nation's top-grossing commercial fishing port
- Founded
- 1652 purchased from the Wampanoag by Plymouth colonists (Dartmouth); 1787 New Bedford separated as a town; 1847 incorporated as a city
- Languages
- English; Portuguese (including Cape Verdean Creole); Spanish; Khmer; Polish; French
- Airports
- T.F. Green Providence Airport (PVD), about 32 miles west; Boston Logan International (BOS), about 56 miles north; New Bedford Regional (EWB) has limited or no scheduled commercial service; Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket are reached by ferry from the city
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20%; bars $1-2 per drink; taxis and rideshare 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhops $2-5 per bag; whale-watch and harbor tour crew 10-15%; counter service optional
About this data
Population 101,834 is Census Vintage 2025 (July 1, 2025), land area 20.00 sq mi, median home value $357,300 and rent $1,137 are Census QuickFacts fetched in this pass. Metro figure 1,708,161 is the value given by the requester for the Providence-Warwick MSA (New Bedford is in the MSA shared with Providence and Fall River; the anchor city is Providence). The event calendar URL is from search results; the visitor site explorenewbedford.org was also seen in search. Elevation, coordinates, founding, event months, hotel ranges, tipping, cost-of-living index, crime rates, sale price and rent are approximate or from general knowledge and not verified in this pass; lower confidence. URLs not load-tested.
