The boroughs of New York City are the five major governmental districts that compose New York City. They are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of the State of New York: The Bronx is Bronx County, Brooklyn is Kings County, Manhattan is New York County, Queens is Queens County, and Staten Island is Richmond County.
All five boroughs of New York came into existence with the creation of modern New York City in 1898, when New York County (then including the Bronx), Kings County, Richmond County, and part of Queens County were consolidated within one municipal government under a new city charter. All former municipalities within the newly consolidated city were dissolved.
New York City was originally confined to Manhattan Island and the smaller surrounding islands that formed New York County. As the city grew northward, it began annexing areas on the mainland, absorbing territory from Westchester County into New York County in 1874 (West Bronx) and 1895 (East Bronx). During the 1898 consolidation, this territory was organized as the Borough of the Bronx, though still part of New York County. In 1914, Bronx County was split off from New York County so that each borough was then coterminous with a county.
When the western part of Queens County was consolidated with New York City in 1898, that area became the Borough of Queens. In 1899, the remaining eastern section of Queens County was split off to form Nassau County on Long Island, thereafter making the borough and county of Queens coextensive with each other.
The term borough was adopted in 1898 to describe a form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city. Under the 1898 City Charter adopted by the New York State Legislature, a borough is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with populated areas within it. [1] The limited powers of the boroughs are inferior to the authority of the government of New York City, contrasting significantly with the powers of boroughs as that term is used in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where a borough is an independent level of government, as well as with borough forms used in other states and in Greater London. [2]
Jurisdiction | Population | Land area | Density of population | GDP | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Borough | County | Census (2020) | square miles | square km | people/ sq. mile | people/ sq. km | billions (2022 US$) 2 | |
Bronx | 1,472,654 | 42.2 | 109.2 | 34,920 | 13,482 | 51.574 | ||
Kings | 2,736,074 | 69.4 | 179.7 | 39,438 | 15,227 | 125.867 | ||
New York | 1,694,251 | 22.7 | 58.7 | 74,781 | 28,872 | 885.652 | ||
Queens | 2,405,464 | 108.7 | 281.6 | 22,125 | 8,542 | 122.288 | ||
Richmond | 495,747 | 57.5 | 149.0 | 8,618 | 3,327 | 21.103 | ||
8,804,190 | 300.5 | 778.2 | 29,303 | 11,314 | 1,206.484 | |||
20,201,249 | 47,123.6 | 122,049.5 | 429 | 166 | 2,163.209 | |||
Sources: [3] [4] [5] [6] and see individual borough articles. |
New York City is often referred to collectively as the five boroughs, which can unambiguously refer to the city proper as a whole, avoiding confusion with any particular borough or with the Greater New York metropolitan area. The term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing. In the same vein, the term outer boroughs refers to all of the boroughs excluding Manhattan, even though the geographic center of the city is along the Brooklyn–Queens border.
All five boroughs were created in 1898 during consolidation, when the city's modern boundaries were established.
The Bronx originally included parts of New York County outside of Manhattan that had previously been ceded by neighboring Westchester County in two stages; in 1874 (southern Yonkers, and the towns of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania) and then following a referendum in 1894 (towns of Westchester, Williamsbridge, and the southern portion of Eastchester). [7] Ultimately in 1914, the present-day separate Bronx County became the most recent county to be created in the State of New York. [8]
The borough of Queens consists of what formerly was only the western part of a then-larger Queens County. In 1899, the three eastern towns of Queens County that had not joined the city the year before—the towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay—formally seceded from Queens County to form the new Nassau County. [9]
The borough of Staten Island, coextensive with Richmond County, was officially the borough of Richmond until the name was changed in 1975 to reflect its common appellation, while leaving the name of the county unchanged. [10]
There are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs of New York City, many with a definable history and character to call their own.
Since 1914, each of New York City's five boroughs has been coextensive with a county of New York State – unlike most U.S. cities, which lie within a single county or extend partially into another county, constitute a county in themselves, or are completely separate and independent of any county.
Each borough is represented by a borough president. Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island each have a Borough Hall with limited administrative functions. The Manhattan Borough President's office is situated in the Manhattan Municipal Building. The Bronx Borough President's office used to be in its own Bronx Borough Hall but has been in the Bronx County Courthouse for decades. Since the abolition of the Board of Estimate in 1990 (due to a 1989 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court [38] ), the borough presidents have minimal executive powers, and there is no legislative function within a borough. Executive functions in New York City are the responsibility of the Mayor of New York City, while legislative functions reside with the New York City Council. The borough presidents primarily act as spokesmen, advocates, and ceremonial leaders for their boroughs, have budgets from which they can allocate relatively modest sums of money to community organizations and projects, and appoint the members of the 59 largely advisory community boards in the city's various neighborhoods. The Brooklyn and Queens borough presidents also appoint trustees to the local public library systems in those boroughs.
Being coextensive with an individual county, each borough also elects a district attorney, as does every other county of New York State. While the district attorneys of Manhattan and Brooklyn are popularly referred to as "Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr.", or "Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth P. Thompson" by the media, they are technically and legally the district attorneys of New York County and Kings County, respectively. The same goes for Staten Island. There is no such distinction made for the district attorneys of the other two counties, Queens and the Bronx, since these boroughs share the respective counties' names. Because the five district attorneys are, technically speaking, state officials (since the counties are considered to be arms of the state government), rather than officials of the city government, they are not subject to the term limitations that govern other New York City officials such as the mayor, the New York City Public Advocate, members of the city council, or the borough presidents. Some civil court judges also are elected on a borough-wide basis, although they generally are eligible to serve throughout the city.
In some document collections the boroughs used to be designated with a one-letter abbreviation: K for Brooklyn, M for Manhattan, Q for Queens, R for Staten Island (Richmond County), and X for the Bronx. [39]
The term "sixth borough" is used to describe any of a number of places that have been metaphorically called a part of New York City because of their geographic location, demographics (they include large numbers of former New Yorkers), special affiliation, or cosmopolitan character. They have included adjacent cities and counties in the New York metropolitan area as well as in other states, U.S. territories, and foreign countries. [40] [41] [42] In 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg referred to the city's waterfront and waterways as a composite sixth borough during presentations of planned rehabilitation projects along the city's shoreline, [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] including Governor's Island in the Upper New York Bay. [49] The Hudson Waterfront, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, lies opposite Manhattan on the Hudson River, and during the Dutch colonial era, it was under the jurisdiction of New Amsterdam and known as Bergen. Jersey City and Hoboken, in New Jersey's Hudson County, are sometimes referred to as the sixth borough, given their proximity and connections by rapid transit PATH trains to the city. [50] [51] [52] [53] Fort Lee, in Bergen County, opposite Upper Manhattan and connected by the George Washington Bridge, has also been called the sixth borough. Yonkers, in Westchester County, is often referred to as the sixth borough as well. [54] [55] [56] [57]
The Bronx is the northernmost borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York City borough of Queens, across the East River. The Bronx, the only New York City borough not primarily located on an island, has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2) and a population of 1,472,654 at the 2020 census. Of the five boroughs, it has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density.
Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the smallest county by geographical area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entirely on Manhattan Island near the southern tip of the state, Manhattan constitutes the center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area. Manhattan serves as New York City's economic and administrative center and has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world.
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is the largest of the five New York City boroughs by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn and by Nassau County to its east, and shares maritime borders with the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, as well as with New Jersey. Queens is the most linguistically and ethnically diverse place in the world.
Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although once part of Manhattan Island, a large modern shipping canal was dug to its south over a small earlier canal in the late 19th century. The neighborhood was then connected to the mainland United States in the early 20th century. The Bronx surrounds the neighborhood to the west, north, and east, while the Harlem River is its southern border.
The City of Greater New York was the consolidation of the City of New York with Brooklyn, western Queens County, and Staten Island, which took effect on January 1, 1898. New York had already annexed the Bronx, so the consolidated city sprawled across five counties, which became the five Boroughs of modern New York. Eastern Queens County was excluded and later became Nassau County.
Area codes 212, 646, and 332 are area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for most of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. By area, it is one of the smallest numbering plan areas (NPAs). The three area codes form an overlay numbering plan, and are also overlaid by area code 917 of a numbering plan area that comprises the entirety of New York City. Area code 212 is the original code assigned for all of the city in 1947. After a restriction of 212 to just Manhattan in 1985, area code 646 was assigned to Manhattan in 1999. In 2015, area code 332 was also added to the Manhattan overlay.
Area code 917 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for the five boroughs of New York City: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. It is an overlay code to all numbering plan areas (NPAs) in the city, and was intended to serve cellular, pager, and voicemail applications in the city, a restriction that was subsequently ruled impermissible by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) while grandfathering that use in New York City. Area code 917 is also assigned to landlines predominantly in Manhattan, to relieve the shortage of numbers there.
New York City is a large and ethnically diverse metropolis. It is the largest city in the United States, and with a long history of international immigration. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities.
Area codes 718, 347, and 929 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, as well as the Marble Hill section of Manhattan. They are part of a larger overlay plan with area code 917, which comprises all of New York City.
The borough presidents are the chief executives of the five boroughs of New York City. For most of the city's history, the office exercised significant executive powers within each borough, and the five borough presidents also sat on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was abolished in 1990. After the Board of Estimate was disbanded, the borough presidents were stripped of a majority of their powers in the government of New York City.
The geography of New York City is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. The city's geography, with its scarce availability of land, is a contributing factor in making New York the most densely populated major city in the United States. Environmental issues are chiefly concerned with managing this density, which also explains why New York is among the most energy-efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States. The city's climate is temperate.
The West Bronx is a region in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The region lies west of the Bronx River and roughly corresponds to the western half of the borough.
Since its founding in 1625 by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam, New York City has been a major destination for immigrants of many nationalities who have formed ethnic enclaves, neighborhoods dominated by one ethnicity. Freed African American slaves also moved to New York City in the Great Migration and the later Second Great Migration and formed ethnic enclaves. These neighborhoods are set apart from the main city by differences such as food, goods for sale, or even language. Ethnic enclaves provide inhabitants security in work and social opportunities, but limit economic opportunities, do not encourage the development of English speaking, and keep immigrants in their own culture.
MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the surface transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It was created in 2008 to consolidate all bus operations in New York City operated by the MTA. As of December 2024, MTA Regional Bus Operations runs 238 local routes, 75 express routes, and 20 Select Bus Service routes. Its fleet of 5,840 buses is the largest municipal bus fleet in the United States and operates 24/7. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 730,924,600, or about 2,400,700 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2024.
The 2013 elections for borough presidents were held on November 5, 2013, and coincided with elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, and members of the New York City Council. Primary elections were held on September 10, 2013.
The term sixth borough is used to describe any of a number of places that are not politically within the borders of any of the five boroughs of New York City but have been referred to as a metaphorical part of the city by virtue of their geographic location, demographic composition, special affiliation with New York City, or cosmopolitan character. They include adjacent cities and counties in the New York metropolitan area as well as in other states, U.S. territories, and foreign countries.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to New York City. New York City is a city in the United States state of New York.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)The sixth borough. That's what Mayor Bloomberg calls the 578 miles of shore land that encircle the five boroughs of New York City.