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The Pioneer Valley and Connecticut River, looking southward toward the towns of Sunderland, Amherst and Whately. The view is from Mount Sugarloaf in Deerfield.

The Pioneer Valley is a region consisting of the three counties that the Connecticut River passes through in Western Massachusetts, and especially those towns that are in the lowlands of the Connecticut River Valley.

The Pioneer Valley covers approximately the second lowest quarter of the Connecticut River Valley, an ancient Rift Valley created approximately 180 million years ago during the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea. The Connecticut River has been flowing through the Valley for millions of years, and was dammed to form glacial lake Hitchcock during the last ice age. Geologically interesting parts of the valley are the basalt flows, South Hadley dinosaur tracks, the layers of rock deposit laid down by the river, and the Lake Hitchcock varves and deltas.

The river valley and the neighboring Hill Towns comprise the entirety of the Pioneer Valley.

The rural Franklin County is the most rural county of Massachusetts. Greenfield is the largest municipality.

Hampshire County is the home of five prominent colleges. Significant municipalites are Northampton and Amherst.

The mostly urban Hampden County is dominated by the cities of Springfield, Chicopee, Westfield, and Holyoke (listed in order of population).

The ethinic and racial diversity varies greatly between urban and rural areas.^{[citation needed]} Although long predominantly European-American, the region is rapidly growing in non-European diversity in urban areas, notably in Latino population.^{[citation needed]} Among the European-American community, the population reflects the British Isles background of the original settlers and the immigrant population through the late-1800s, with large numbers of individuals with backgrounds of Irish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, French Canadian, and Greek heritage.^{[citation needed]} The Latino community has a significant Puerto Rican community.^{[citation needed]} Amherst is home to the largest number of Asian-Americans, as well as South and East Asians.^{[citation needed]}

The most well-known are the members of the Five Colleges consortium:

• Amherst College
• Hampshire College
• Mount Holyoke College
• Smith College
• University of Massachusetts Amherst

Other four-year colleges include:

• American International College
• Bay Path College
• Elms College
• Springfield College
• Western New England College
• Westfield State College

Community colleges in the area include:

• Greenfield Community College
• Holyoke Community College
• Springfield Technical Community College

In addition, there are private middle and high schools in the area, including:

• Deerfield Academy
• Stoneleigh Burnham
• Northfield Mount Hermon
• Willison Northampton School

The Bement School

• Academy at Charlemont

The Pioneer Valley is sometimes known to its inhabitants as "Happy Valley", but more typically residents refer to it simply as "the Valley." It is the "valley full o' Pioneer" in "the sleepy west of the woody east" of which the Pixies sang in the song "UMass."

Valley residents also have a love of arts, both visual and performing, as demonstrated by numerous art galleries, countless theaters and performances, the residencies of both Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle in the valley, the visual Dr. Seuss Memorial in Springfield, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

"Of the many quirks in the Montague Bookmill, a bookstore and cafe just outside Amherst and Northampton, perhaps the most serendipitous are on its bathroom walls."—The Boston Globe, 2005

The New York Times noted that

while this charming pocket of the state, known as the Pioneer Valley, may be wild turkey country, as well as the approach to Vermont ski country, it's also used-book country. Our three-day visit was dedicated to browsing and buying amid the valley's rich and collegial network of bookshops and private dealers. More members of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers (36) are to be found in this area than in bookish Greater Boston (25).

– ^[1]

with an independent bookstore in almost every town, several small publishers, and countless local authors, the Valley could well be counted as a reader's paradise. Amherst has at least four bookstores, South Hadley has at least one notable bookstore (The Odyssey Bookshop). Since the late 1980s, Montague has had the Bookmill, and the World Eye Bookshop is in its 40th year in Greenfield. Northampton has least four independent bookstores, including Raven Used Books [2], with many independent bookstores covering two floors.

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The Pioneer Valley has a broadly varied economic base^{[citation needed]}.

Franklin County in the north serves as a significant agricultural region despite its size, due to the rich topsoil found in the area. The valley's sweet corn and asparagus are considered, especially among New Englanders to be some of the world's finest. Cow Corn, potatoes, and shade-grown tobacco are also major crops. Fields of all sort, particularly corn and tobacco fields, as well as numerous farmhouses and tobacco barns dot the landscape. Light industry is concentrated in the town of South Deerfield and the city of Greenfield, while service industries exist throughout the county. Increasingly Franklin County is becoming a place of bedroom communities, with the major transportation routes of Interstate 91, Route 2, and U.S. Route 5 facilitating a boom in residential building that has not kept pace with commercial development in many of the county's towns.

The Hallmark Institute of Photography is located in Turners Falls.

Two major corporations, Channing Bete and Yankee Candle, are headquartered in South Deerfield and Greenfield. Both communities have been had controversial zoning issues surrounding permitting variances to build big box stores such as Wal-Mart. Greenfield received national attention when its decision prevented Wal-Mart from building a store in town.

The county also garners tourism due to such attractions as a Butterfly Garden located in South Deerfield, and Historic Deerfield, and the annual arrival of thousands of American and foreign tourists to observe the area's spectacular autumn foliage is a welcome boost to revenue.

With the Five Colleges, Hampshire County has a significant part of its economy devoted to serving college students, including numerous independent bookstores and stationery shops.

The area is also home to many restaurants, ranging in class from sports bars to steakhouses. Northampton (also known to some as Hamp and others as NoHo) is the culinary capital of Western Massachusetts as well as having a reputation as a lesbian Mecca. The practice of adding candy, crushed cookies, and nuts to ice cream was invented by Steve Herrell, proprietor of Herrell's ice cream parlor in Northampton.

With the exception of New England-based supermarkets (Big Y, Stop & Shop, Pricechopper), almost all of the big-box retailers in Hampshire County are located in the town of Hadley. Save for Hadley, and perhaps Northampton, the rest of the region is a land of "mom and pop" stores and a spattering of chain convenience stores.

With most of the large cities in Western Massachusetts, Hampden County generally has a more commercial-industrial economy than anywhere else in the region, a land of big-box retailers and heavy industry.

Tourism is also popular, particularly from the rest of New England, due to the museums at The Quadrangle, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and CityStage in Springfield, and attractions such as The Big E in the town of West Springfield, and Six Flags New England in Agawam. The Holyoke Mall at Ingleside in Holyoke, Memorial Drive in Chicopee, Riverdale Street (often referred to by locals as "Riverdale Road") in West Springfield, and Boston Road in Springfield are popular destinations for shopping.

Outlying towns such as Tolland are sparsely populated and close enough to the Berkshires that outdoor activities such as camping make up a large part of their economy.

Appreciation of the natural environs is a big part of the Valley life, with numerous private nature sanctuaries, parks and forests.

One notable park is Mount Tom State Park which, joined with lands held by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, forms a long corridor of wildlife stretching across the Connecticut River.

1. ^ Hellman, Peter (1998): "WEEKEND EXCURSION; Every Town Is One for the Books." The New York Times, March 13, 1998[1]

• Massachusetts geography

• Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau
• Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
• Pioneer Valley Guide
• What to Do in Pioneer Valley

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