Within the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and down along the Connecticut River into the Greater Hartford region of Connecticut is the Knowledge Corridor, a region largely identified by a high concentration of intellectual knowledge, particularly with the Five Colleges Consortium in and around Northampton, Amherst, and South Hadley in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. In Franklin County to the north is an environment and culture more akin to Vermont, and particularly more akin to such places as Brattleboro and Bellows Falls (the latter in the Town of Rockingham). To the south is Hampden County, home to the birthplace of basketball in Springfield and the birthplace of volleyball in Holyoke as well as Dr. Seuss exhibits in the former. Not much else exists in the latter city; however, Mount Holyoke is nearby (in the South Hadley area), and the city is named for Elizur Holyoke. Even further south is the State of Connecticut, where Hartford is renowned for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, one of the North American Reciprocal Museums.
