Boston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts, and the cultural and financial center of New England in the Northeastern United States, with an area of 48.4 sq mi and a population of 675,647 in 2020. Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area is the eleventh-largest in the country.

Durham is a city in North Carolina. It's part of the Research Triangle Region, known for its technology companies and scholarly institutions. On the Duke University campus are the neo-Gothic Duke Chapel and the Nasher Museum of Art, with work by contemporary artists like Christian Marclay and Ai Weiwei. The Museum of Life + Science has hands-on exhibits, a butterfly house and wildlife habitats for bears and lemurs.