city, Middlesex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S., located just north of Boston. The community, named for Woburn, England, was set off from Charlestown and incorporated as a town in 1642. Aided by construction of the Middlesex Canal (1803), it changed its economic base from agriculture to industry during the first half of the 19th century. Shoe manufacturing and leather tanning were the predominant industries. Services and trade are now the main sources of income, but light industry remains important; manufactures include electronic components, chemicals, and food products.

Woburn was the birthplace (1753) of Sir Benjamin Thompson (Thompson, Sir Benjamin, Count Von Rumford) (later count von Rumford), a noted physicist and a founder of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. His home, Rumford House, is maintained as a museum with models of his experiments and inventions. The city's old burial ground contains the graves of the ancestors of four U.S. presidents—Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Franklin Pierce, and James A. Garfield. Pop. (2000) 37,258; (2003 est.) 37,809.