BOSTON -- Needless to say, Massachusetts is not a big state in terms of size. It’s not Rhode Island (smallest) for goodness sake, but at just over 8,000 square miles, there are only five states smaller than the Bay State.

And yet, reminding us once again that even a group as small as two single individuals will eventually find something to contest, there are nonetheless very definite divides in this pint-sized province.

Perhaps not the dramatic divides as say, northern and southern California, or east/west Texas, or upper/lower Michigan peninsula. But the Berkshires may as well be the Rockies for many in the Greater Boston area. And then there’s the far-more contentious question of North Shore vs. South Shore ...

This is the divide that resonates, at least in eastern Massachusetts. I grew up on the North Shore. (OK, barely. Winthrop lies basically at end of a runway at Logan International Airport, a peninsula jutting out into Boston Harbor -- but the northern end of the harbor, mind you.)

Say the “North Shore” in Massachusetts, and people think of towns like Marblehead, Swampscott, Beverly, Manchester, Ipswich, all the way up to Gloucester and Rockport. South Shore? Quincy, Weymouth, Hingham, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury.

From Boston, we are only talking about a distance of roughly 40 miles or so, north-south in either direction, and yet, residents of these shoreline factions feel oddly territorial about them. Not to mention each feeling smug and certain about the clear and evident superiority of their geographic end of things.

Perhaps an unemotional, (non)scientific checklist might help.

Food. Isn’t that what fires emotions about an area like little else? Being on the ocean, it’s silly to talk steakhouses; this is more about tartar than tartare.

Both the North and South shores boast plenty of seafood places, but the fact is, the stars of seafood -- lobster and clams -- just predominate more on the North Shore. There is no equivalent of Ipswich’s Woodman’s (clams) or Rockport’s The Lobster Pool (guess) on the South Shore.

Scenery. A bit tougher to say. There are some beautiful beaches along the Duxbury and Marshfield swing of the South Shore. They do not compare, however, with Crane Beach or Plum Island to the north. Halibut Point in Rockport is a stunning place of granite outcroppings along the ocean, but Worlds End in Hingham is a world-class park designed by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. On the other hand, the nation’s oldest artist colony (Rockport/Gloucester) wasn’t drawn to the flats of Hull or Hingham Harbor.

Celebrities Well, it could be said that the Bay State’s resident (and recently-departed) muse, John Updike (Ipswich) trumps all others, but one has to acknowledge such South Shore stalwarts as the Farrelly Brothers (Duxbury), actors Chris Cooper (Kingston) and Steven Carell (Marshfield), and most of Aerosmith, who have literally spawned all over the South Shore like kudzu.

Celebrity legal cases The famed Sacco and Vanzetti trial took place on the South Shore in Braintree. On the other hand, outside of the Scopes and O.J. cases, the Salem Witch Trials may still be the nation’s most famous, and while the nation itself did not exist yet, the North Shore did. Sorry, Sacco.

If you’ve been following along at home, you see the trend lines here. Am I a wee bit biased? Of course. And don’t get me wrong, I love much about the South Shore. Well, a lot, anyway. OK, some things. Some of my best friends are from the South Shore.

To that end, one final comparison: “Chronicle” reporters. From the North Shore, yours truly. (Winthrop) From the South, Anthony Everett (Cohasset), and one Peter C. Mehegan (Scituate).

OK, I’ll give you that one.

(Watch the “Main Streets and Back Roads of the South Shore” on WCVB-TV’s, “Chronicle,” on Monday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m.)