city, Essex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on Nahant Bay and Lynn Harbor (inlets of Massachusetts Bay), just northeast of Boston. Settled in 1629 as Saugus, it was incorporated as a town in 1629 and renamed in 1637 for Lynn Regis, England. Tanning and shoemaking were early colonial activities, and the first iron-smelting works in the American colonies was built there in 1643. After the introduction of the shoe-sewing machine in 1848 and factory production methods, it became the leading shoe centre in the United States. A more diversified economy has prevailed since the 1930s, and services (mainly health care and telecommunications) and trade are now major sources of employment. Lynn is the site of extensive manufacturing facilities of the General Electric Company (General Electric Co.), which produces jet engines and electrical instruments in the city.

Recreational areas include Lynn Woods, an unusually large municipal park with wilderness areas. The city has a campus of North Shore Community College (1965). The Mary Baker Eddy (Eddy, Mary Baker) House, where the Christian Science movement originated in the 1860s, is in the adjacent town of Swampscott. Lynn is connected to the peninsular resort town of Nahant by Lynn Beach, a 1.5-mile- (2.4-km-) long sand spit. Inc. city, 1850. Pop. (1990) 81,245; (2000) 89,050.