Boston noise heatmap

Noise complaint density across Boston over the last 12 months. Tap any block or search an address to see its A–F noise grade. Quieter is better.

Current release

Data through April 2026

April 2025 through April 2026 · 1.4K records

How this works. Every geocoded 311 noise complaint in Boston from April 2025 through April 2026 is weighted by time-of-day (2× for 10pm–7am) and type (construction / amplified music count more), then smoothed into a 200m grid via Gaussian KDE with σ = 200m. Grades are per-city percentiles: A is the quietest 10% of the city, F the loudest 10%, and B/C/D cover the middle 80%. An A in Boston means “quietest 10% of this city”, not “quiet compared to everywhere.” Full methodology.

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QuietestABCDFNoisiest

Tap the map or search an address to see the noise score at that location. Scores are computed from 1,413 geocoded noise complaints in Boston over the last year.

Grade distribution

Grade A
227 cells
Grade B
453 cells
Grade C
905 cells
Grade D
453 cells
Grade F
227 cells

Each cell covers a 200m × 200m patch of ground. Grades are assigned by percentile rank within Boston. A and F are each reserved for the top and bottom 10% of cells by density, and B / C / D split the middle 80% into a 20% / 40% / 20% fan, so the counts should come out close to a 10 / 20 / 40 / 20 / 10 shape by construction.

Underlying 311 noise complaints sourced from the Boston open data portal. Base map tiles from CARTO and OpenStreetMap. Address search via Google Places.