South Shore

The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management limits its definition of the South Shore to the municipalities between Boston Harbor and Cape Cod which include Atlantic coastal and coastal watershed areas "from the three-mile limit of the state territorial sea to 100 feet beyond the first major land transportation route encountered (a road, highway, rail line, etc.)." This definition eliminates Quincy and Weymouth, which border Boston Harbor, but adds the towns of Hanover, Norwell and Pembroke.
Cohasset
Duxbury
Hanover
Hingham
Hull
Kingston
Marshfield
Norwell
Pembroke
Plymouth
Scituate

In the official sense of the South Shore, however, some of these coastal communities are either members of the Boston-centered Inner Core Committee of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) or not part of the metropolitan area at all, while the South Shore Coalition of the MAPC comprises representatives from 13 coastal and inland communities and includes the following cities and towns:
Braintree
Cohasset
Duxbury
Hanover
Hingham
Holbrook
Hull
Marshfield
Norwell
Pembroke
Rockland
Scituate
Weymouth

Other inland towns and cities that are sometimes included in definitions of the South Shore include:
Abington
Avon
Brockton
Canton
Carver
Halifax
Hanson
Milton
Plympton
Quincy
Randolph
Whitman