Location: Cape Cod < Massachusetts < USA
Nearest Beach:
beach at 0.5
Miles
Car: necessary
Chatham, Massachusetts is located at the southeast tip of Cape Cod. If the Cape is viewed as a bent arm, Chatham is at the elbow. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, to the South is Nantucket Sound, and to the north is Pleasant Bay.
Major geographical features of the Town are hilly, wooded uplands, extensive barrier beaches and spits, harbors, numerous small estuaries, and salt and freshwater ponds.
Mainland features are the result of glacial action during the last Ice Age and consist of ridges, knobs (hills), outwash plains, and kettles (depressions and ponds). Several ponds formed by melting glacial ice have become salt ponds because of rising sea levels. The Town’s coastal dunes and beaches have been formed through thousands of years of erosion of scarps (cliffs) and movement of the material from the north and west.