Salem ( SAY-ləm) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located upon the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous treaty by Europeans began in 1626 later than English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports trading commodities in upfront American history. It is a suburb of Boston.

Today Salem is a residential and tourist area that is house to the House of Seven Gables, Salem State University, Pioneer Village, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, Salem Willows Park, and the Peabody Essex Museum. It features historic residential neighborhoods in the Federal Street District and the Charter Street Historic District. The city’s population was 44,480 at the 2020 census.

Salem is widely noted for the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692. Some of Salem’s police cars are adorned similar to witch logos, a public elementary theoretical is known as Witchcraft Heights, and the Salem High School gymnastic teams are named the Witches. Gallows Hill is believed to have bearing in mind been the site of many public hangings, including of persons convicted as witches. It is now a park and used as a playing field for various sports.

Native Americans lived in northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas. The peninsula that would become Salem was known as Naumkeag (alternate spellings Naemkeck, Nahumkek, Neumkeage) by the native people who lived there at the era of door in the to the lead 1600s. Naumkeag was a major agreement for the indigenous group that controlled territory from the Merrimack to the Mystic rivers. The English and further Europeans referred to them as the Naumkeag people. There are probable native settlement sites near the mouths of the North, South, and Forest rivers in Salem.