Boroughs of New York City
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.
The term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing.
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).
[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.
[25] Brooklyn (co-extensive with Kings County), on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough.
The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country.
Since the early 2010s, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms,[28][29] and of postmodern art[30] and design.
[29] Queens (co-extensive with Queens County), on Long Island north and east of Brooklyn, is geographically the largest borough, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States,[33] as well as the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.
[31][32] Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, the borough has since developed both commercial and residential prominence.
Queens is the site of Citi Field, the baseball stadium of the New York Mets, and hosts the annual U.S. Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
