A report on New Netherland, Manhattan, Brooklyn, New York (state), New York City and Long Island

Manhattan, known regionally as The City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City.

Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York.

New York, often called New York City (NYC) to distinguish it from the State of New York, is the most populous city in the United States.

Long Island is a largely urbanized and densely populated island in the southeastern geographical area of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area.

The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

It is the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, and coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York.

It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City.

It begins at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 mi east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward over 100 mi into the Atlantic Ocean.

The island comprises four counties; Kings and Queens counties (the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, respectively) and Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County occupies the eastern two thirds.

With 20.2 million residents, it is the fourth most populous state in the United States as of 2021, with approximately 44% living in New York City, including 25% of the state's population within Brooklyn and Queens, and another 15% on the remainder of Long Island.

Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it is located on the western end of Long Island and shares a land border with the borough of Queens.

Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it with Staten Island.

The Dutch surrendered Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan island to England in 1664 (formalized in 1667), during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

The five boroughs—Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens (Queens County), Manhattan (New York County), the Bronx (Bronx County), and Staten Island (Richmond County)—were created when local governments were consolidated into a single municipal entity in 1898.

Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York City's five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, and is the smallest borough in terms of land area.

The Dutch soon also settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson Valley, establishing the multiethnic colony of New Netherland, a center of trade and immigration.

The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands; it was part of New Netherland.

James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when England seized it from Dutch control.

Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, the western portion of Long Island (including the areas that would later become the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Lower Hudson Valley.

A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624, with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island.

However, in 1664, the English returned to take over the Dutch colony of New Netherland, including Long Island.

It was given its municipal charter in 1653, by which time the Commonality of New Amsterdam included the isle of Manhattan, Staaten Eylandt, Pavonia, and the Lange Eylandt towns.

As early as 1637, English settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to settle along its banks and on Lange Eylandt, some with permission from the colonial government and others with complete disregard for it.

It was during the early British colonial period that the New Netherlanders actually developed the land and society that had an enduring impact on the Capital District, the Hudson Valley, North Jersey, western Long Island, New York City, Fairfield County, and ultimately the United States.

Much of New York's boundaries are in water, as is true for New York City: four of its five boroughs are situated on three islands at the mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island; Staten Island; and Long Island, which contains Brooklyn and Queens at its western end.

Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island; the Metro-North Railroad, which connects Manhattan to Upstate New York and Southwestern Connecticut; and NJ Transit trains, which run to various points in New Jersey.