Manhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.
New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan (and which should not be confused with New York City),

 is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2007 population of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47  km²), or 70,595 residents per square mile (27,267/km²). It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 personal income per capita above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of New York’s five boroughs in population but the smallest in area. It consists of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall’s Island, Ward’s Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a small section on the mainland adjacent to the Bronx.
Manhattan is a major commercial, financial, and cultural center of both the United States and the world. Most major radio, television, and telecommunications companies in the United States are based here, as well as many news, magazine, book, and other media publishers. Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations. Manhattan has the largest central business district in the United States, is the site of both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the home to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the nation. It is the center of New York City and the New York metropolitan region, hosting the seat of city government and a large portion of the area’s employment, business, and recreational activities.
The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson’s yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon). A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the Hudson River). The word “Manhattan” has been translated as “island of many hills” from the Lenape language. The Encyclopedia of New York City offers other derivations, including from the Munsee dialect of Lenape: manahachtanienk (“place of general inebriation”), manahatouh (“place where timber is procured for bows and arrows”), or menatay (“island).
Landmarks and architecture
The skyscraper, which has shaped Manhattan’s distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with New York City’s identity since the end of the 19th century. From 1890–1973, the world’s tallest building was in Manhattan, with nine different buildings holding the title.] The New York World Building on Park Row, was the first to take the title, standing 309 feet (91 m) until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The nearby Park Row Building, with its 29 stories standing 391 feet (119 m) high took the title in 1899. The 41-story Singer Building, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood 612 feet (187 m) high until 1967, when it became the tallest building ever demolished. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, standing 700 feet (213 m) at the foot of Madison Avenue, wrested the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark’s Campanile in Venice. The Woolworth Building, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in 1913, topping off at 792 feet (241 m).
The Chrysler Building. The tallest building in the city from 1930 – 1931The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world’s tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown. At 927 feet (282 m), 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in an astonishing 11 months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title. At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure’s trademark 185-foot (56 m)-high spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929. Both buildings were soon surpassed, with the May 1931 completion of the 102-story Empire State Building with its Art Deco tower soaring 1,250 feet (381 m) to the top of the building. The 203 ft (62 m) high pinnacle was later added bringing the total height of the building to 1,453 ft (443 m)).
The Empire State Building was the world’s tallest building from 1931 to 1972, and is currently the tallest building in the city.The former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, once an iconic symbol of the City, were located in Lower Manhattan. At 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417m& 415m), the 110-story buildings were the world’s tallest from 1972, until they were surpassed by the construction of the Sears Tower in 1974. By the end of the 20th century the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were arguably among the world’s most famous and recognizable buildings until their destruction in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Freedom Tower, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is currently under construction and is slated to be ready for occupancy in 2014.
In 1961, Penn Central unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead, and White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City.Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called “an act of irresponsible public vandalism” by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for preserving the “city’s historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage”.[128] The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station’s demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including nearly 1,000 in New York City.
The “twin towers” of the former World Trade Center, New York’s tallest buildings from 1972 to 2001.The theatre district around Broadway at Times Square, New York University, Columbia University, Flatiron Building, the Financial District around Wall Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Italy, Harlem, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, and Central Park are all located on this densely populated island.
The city is a leader in energy-efficient “green” office buildings, such as Hearst Tower, owned by Englishman Samuel Fox, and the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center.
Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by Fifth Avenue. Along the park’s borders, these streets are usually referred to as Central Park North, Central Park West, and Central Park South, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The 843 acre (3.4 km²) park offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6 mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.
While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era’s most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3,000,000 cubic yards (2,300,000 m3) of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.
17.8% of the borough, a total of 2,686 acres (10.9 km²), are devoted to parkland. Almost 70% of Manhattan’s space devoted to parks is located outside of Central Park, including 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts and many other amenities.
The African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street preserves a site containing the remains of over 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. The remains were found in 1991 during the construction of the Foley Square Federal Office Building.

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