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Queens |
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Address
City Hall
Queens, NY 10007
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Phone
212-NEW-YORK |
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Queens is the largest in area and second most populous of the five boroughs of New York City. It is coterminous with Queens County in the U.S. state of New York and is located on western Long Island. It is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States.
Established on November 1, 1683, it was named for the then-queen consort, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. As of 2000, the population is 2,229,379, making it the tenth most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is the district of JamaicaGR6, a neighborhood of New York City. The United States Postal Service divides the borough into five "towns": Long Island City, Jamaica, Flushing, Far Rockaway, and Floral Park; mail addressed to a residence or business in Queens includes the name of the applicable neighborhood (such as Ozone Park) on the next line below the street address—rather than "Queens, New York"—followed by the ZIP Code. Note that these ZIP codes do not necessarily accurately determine neighborhood names and boundaries, as "East Elmhurst" was largely coined by the United States Postal Service. Most neighborhoods have no solid boundaries and at times residents are left guessing to what neighborhood they belong.
The diversity of suburban and urban areas of Queens is striking. Neighborhoods in the eastern part of the borough are similar to towns in western Nassau County, having a more suburban look, while neighborhoods in the western and central sections loosely resemble The Bronx (particularly the eastern Bronx) and more closely, Brooklyn (particularly northeastern Brooklyn, which borders Queens), having more urban characteristics. Queens' characterization as a suburb is thus inaccurate, or has been so since the 1960s.
The borough of Queens was originally named after Queen Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of King Charles II of England. Originally, Queens County included the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. It was an original county of New York State, one of twelve created in 1683. By 1870, Queens County consisted of six towns: Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica, North Hempstead, Hempstead, and Oyster Bay. In 1870, the city of Long Island City was incorporated, consisting of what had been the Village of Astoria and some unincorporated areas in the Town of Newtown. Long Island City, Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica, and the Rockaway Peninsula of the Town of Hempstead became the borough of Queens in Greater New York on January 1, 1898. The part of Queens County that was not annexed to New York City, consisting of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay and all of the Town of Hempstead except the Rockaway Peninsula, was constituted as the new Nassau County in 1899.
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