Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Boston metropolitan area, situated directly north of the city of Boston proper, across the Charles River. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge has also been home to Radcliffe College, once one of the leading colleges for women in the United States before it merged with Harvard. According to the 2010 Census, the city's population was 105,162. It is the fifth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, Springfield, and Lowell.