Emerald Necklace

The Emerald Necklace consists of a 1,100-acre (4.5 km2; 450 ha) chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the “neck” of the Boston peninsula; to this day it is not fully constructed. The Necklace comprises half of the City of Boston’s park acreage, parkland in the Town of Brookline, and parkways and park edges under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. More than 300,000 people live within its watershed area. nThis linear system of parks was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to connect Boston Common, dating from the colonial period, and Public Garden (1837) to Franklin Park, known as the “great country park.”nThe Emerald Necklace Parks Master Plan was completed in 1989, and updated in 2001.