Talk:Boroughs of New York City

Incorrect Definition of Borough
It says: "Technically, under New York State Law, a "borough" is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with the cities, towns, and incorporated villages within it." If that's true, then Queens didn't become a borough until a year after consolidation, as Queens County contained towns that did not join New York City. Moreover, the two separate boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx were part of the same county until 1914. I don't believe this "technical" definition given in the article is correct, the boroughs were specifically set up to be sub-divisions of New York City. 98.221.124.80 (talk) 11:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Confusing sentence
Nice article, but I am a bit confused by "differs significantly from other borough forms of government used in the New York City area and elsewhere". There are other forms of borough government in NYC? That doesn't make sense to me. Does it mean the greater NYC area? --W.marsh 18:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the awkward and ambiguous sentence. It was reworded to refer to the surrounding Tri-State Region, where there are forms of boroughs in New Jersey, Connecticut and in Pennsylvania. Alansohn 14:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Good Article, overall. I am especially a fan of the map showing the five borough. Perhaps a definition of borough and its origin (etymology) might be a good addition?
 * That sort of thing is more suited for the more general article, Borough. &mdash; Larry V (talk) 18:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the sentence could still use some refinement. New York is not the only city in the country (let alone the world) that is organized into boroughs; see the references cited in Political subdivisions of Virginia. Doctor Whom 16:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is a good article; however, the numbers in the sentence, "The densities of the boroughs are as follows: Manhattan 71,078; Brooklyn 36,008; the Bronx 33,141; Queens 21,037; Staten Island 8,404" have no label or context. Is this people per square mile? matt 14:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattpersons (talk • contribs)

Should add a bit more
I am from NYC, specifically Staten Island, and thought that there should be a bit more added. Maybe include slight info on each borough? Talk about how the government is slightly different from the rest of the NYC area? SKREAM 02:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Consistency in Graphics
The map should present the boroughs in the canonical (alphabetical) order as the text.

Brooklyn should be the same color in both graphics.

--ChrisEich 21:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * indeed.. this is very confusing, and needs to be changed. 131.111.8.97 10:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The colours bothered me, so I changed Brooklyn to yellow. --Quite 08:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The colors on the map now match the colors in the bar graph. But they don't match the colors in the "Five Boroughs at a Glance" table.  This is very frustrating, because when I look at the map, and then try to figure out which borough is which, I automatically look at the "Five Boroughs at a Glance" color code as the key, since it's so much larger than the actual key.  Could someone change the colors so they match? &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 17:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made some changes to the colors in the "Five Boroughs at a Glance" table. It now matches the Five Boroughs of NYC map and the population bar graph better.  For now, I left 'Manhattan' in aqua and changed 'Staten Island' to magenta, even though those colors are lighter than the corresponding colors in the map and the bar graph.  I would prefer to change 'Manhattan' to blue, and 'Staten Island' to mediumpurple, if everyone agrees that there would be sufficient contrast with the font color. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vereverde (talk • contribs) 11:27, 4 October 2010


 * Thanks! This is great.  Either the colors you added or the darker ones are fine, but if you do go for dark blue, be sure it contrasts well with both colors of link text (clicked and unclicked).  On my computer, unclicked text is pure blue (0 R, 0 G, 255 B), which appears to be the exact same color used for Manhattan in the bar graph, and perhaps also in the map (although that might be slightly darker). &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 00:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The 5:18 8, November 2010 edit by Shakescene seems to have done the trick. Well done! Let's hope it stays that way. Vereverde (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sixth borough?
I live in New York City (Queens) and ive never heard of Philly Florida and ESPECIALLY ISRAEL as the "Sixth Borough". The only places i heard as the sixth borough are the Rockaway penninsula, The Lower East Side and Hudson county and newark. Philly/Florida/ISRAEL!!?....

---If you look at the New York Times in 2005, you will find that philly is indeed called a sixth borough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.19.88.91 (talk) 08:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

South florida and ISRAEL ???
You're kidding me right? The most south eastern state and a I dont know if Israel is qualified to be a country let alone the sixth borough.

The Sixth Borough: [Lower East Side]!?
No. The Lower East Side is part of Manhattan. It even says it on the Lower East Side article. This does not belong under the sixth borough section.

Blakeelias (talk) 23:25, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Compare "Borough" to "county"
Would someone familiar with boroughs please explain the differences and compare or contrast how it differs from a county? In my understanding, the following relationships exist: Thanks for any comments. // Mark Renier (talk) 06:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * a city can have one or more boroughs
 * a borough exists entirely within one city
 * a county can have one or more cities
 * a city exists entirely within one county (that is, a city cannot span counties)


 * The specific of counties and boroughs can vary, as counties are defined at the state level in the US, not the federal level. Some states do not even have counties: Louisiana has parishes, while, IIRC, Alaska has boroughs! As to your list, I know there are several cities that cross county lines; the one I remember is Atlanta, Georgia, which is mostly in Fulton County, but partly in Dekalb County. in some states, certain cities are not even in counties; Baltimore City is a separate division from the counties of Maryland, know as an Independent City. Virigia has about 40 independent cites that are not within counties. My point is that is it hard to make a comparison between counties and boroughs generically. We would probably have to limit it to New York State itself, but I don't know the particulars for that state for this matter. - BillCJ (talk) 07:50, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * See Borough (United States) and County (United States). jnestorius(talk) 11:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of "City settled" column in table?
I'm not sure about the intent of the column named "City Settled" in the table, as compared to the "Date Settled" column.

In the case of Manhattan, the date given in the table (1653) is the date of incorporation of the city of New Amsterdam, according to Manhattan. The date for Brooklyn (1756) doesn't match anything in History_of_Brooklyn; that article gives 1834 as the date of the creation of the City of Brooklyn. The table's Bronx date of 1734 isn't mentioned in History_of_the_Bronx.

If this column is intended to give the date of city establishment, it appears to be incorrect. If it's trying to convey some other information, that should be more precisely indicated.

LijeBailey (talk) 23:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Historical villages
While it's true that St. George is a significant community in Staten, and Jamaica is likewise for Queens, the other listed "villages" either did not exist, or were not villages in the borough to which they are attributed. Regardless, the assertion that each of five listed villages became the basis for the Five Boroughs is extremely doubtful. Unless a citation can be found, the entire subsection should be removed.

I deleted the sentence, "In the America, a City Village welcomes to Hoboken, New Jersey from a University of New York," because it is nonsensical.

Vereverde (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

After doing some research on the subsection entitled "Historical villages", I removed the entire subsection. Much of the information, as well as the premise, was incorrect. Vereverde (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Correct nomenclature for the Bronx
In the following sentence from the article, a deletion was made: "The Borough of The Bronx was originally the parts of New York County that had been previously ceded by Westchester County, until Bronx County was created in 1914." In order to avoid an editing war in the main article, a consensus should be reached in this Talk Page.

It's my understanding that 'the Bronx' refers to the borough, and therefore the words, "The Borough of", are superfluous. However, the correct name of the county is "Bronx County", not "The Bronx County". So the sentence should read, " The Borough of The Bronx was originally the parts of New York County that had been previously ceded by Westchester County, until Bronx County was created in 1914." Some additions and style changes could also be made, but my main interest was to discuss the correct nomenclature. Vereverde (talk) 17:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * While in normal discussion about the current Bronx, it's unnecessary to specify "Borough", it's clearer in the historical explanation above if you say what you're talking about, i.e. not just some neighborhood or area of either Westchester or New York Counties, but one of the five original Boroughs. And it's the Borough of the Bronx but the County of Bronx with no definite article (outside official usage, normally called Bronx County). A very extensive discussion concluded recently about usage of the definite article in the Wikipedia article's title at Talk:The Bronx/Name, resulting in the restoration of "The". I'd suggest some phrase like "The Borough of the Bronx was formed from those parts of New York County that had been annexed from Westchester County between 1874 and 1897". —— Shakescene (talk) 04:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Marble Hill
On 26 October 2010, an unregistered user deleted the paragraph on Marble Hill, stating that it seemed trivial and didn't relate well with the rest of the article. I agree that the deletion improved the article, but for the following reason: this short article is a general discussion on the Five Boroughs as a whole, but the history of Marble Hill is quite specific to Manhattan and the Bronx. Therefore, the short paragraph threw the article out of balance. If, at some point in the future, "Borough (New York City)" develops a more detailed discussion on each of the boroughs, it may at that time be appropriate to include a sentence or paragraph about Marble Hill. For those readers who are interested in Marble Hill, the wiki article on Manhattan includes a link, and I have added a link in the "See also" section at the bottom of "Borough (New York City)". Vereverde (talk) 00:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

What does a borough do?
This article doesn't really tell us how boroughs fit into the government of New York. Does anyone actually know about this? Lawdroid (talk) 01:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)~ 76.218.101.27 (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistent coloring
Y You color Manhatten as blue on the map, but green in the table. To the gallows with you! 76.218.101.27 (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC) 76.218.101.27 (talk) 05:24, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

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Requested move 8 April 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved per consensus. Additional observations below. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:28, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Borough (New York City) → The five boroughs of New York City – per WP:COMMONNAME. The name most commonly used is the five boroughs. Couldn't that be the name of the page? LakeKayak (talk) 02:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC) – Relisting per move review. George Ho (talk) 19:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Original closing rationale : The result of the move request was: Page not moved Yashovardhan (talk) 13:50, 15 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Or how about the Boroughs of New York City per WP:THE and WP:CONCISE? —  AjaxSmack   16:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I can agree with per WP:THE. However, I think the more common name is the "five boroughs of New York City" or even the "five boroughs". (However, it seems that the name "five boroughs" may be ambiguous and therefore should not be used.) With that in mind, how about to Five boroughs of New York City?LakeKayak (talk) 18:26, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:SINGULAR. The topic here is the concept of a borough (singular). Since "borough" means different things in different places, and this is not the primary topic for "borough", we need to specify NYC. When one says "the five boroughs" or similar, it's referring colloquially to NYC as a whole, not to just the "Borough of Brooklyn", etc. Although five boroughs already redirects here (with a hatnote for the Danelaw), I think the singular term is the more more appropriate title. Station1 (talk) 07:51, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This article deals with the concept of a NYC borough and is appropriately titled.  Calidum   15:22, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Objection.  The article does not exclusively deal with the concept.  It describes and lists the five boroughs, as well.  I can't follow your argument.LakeKayak (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a legitimate point. The entire Descriptions of the Boroughs section has been added in the past year or so, and should be removed. Descriptions of each borough belong in the individual boroughs' articles and/or the New York City article, not duplicated here. This article should be about the legal and governmental concept of "borough". Station1 (talk) 04:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I think it is how the page is evolving. To make the page exclusively on the concept of a borough seems to me to be a sign that this should be either a Wiktionary page or on a section of a Wikipedia page potentially called "Forms of local governments", but not a stand-alone article.LakeKayak (talk) 21:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Since we agree that the recent evolution is unfortunate, I don't understand why you reverted my changes that once again focus the article on the topic of "borough". It is quite normal to edit an article while a move discussion is taking place, and certainly no prohibition against it. The editorial additions and subtractions are intended to improve the article and to stand regardless of whether this article is moved to Boroughs of New York City or not. Station1 (talk) 00:36, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It only seems like you made changes in attempt to support your side. That's what I was, and still I am, uncomfortable with.  I think you may have misunderstood me.  When I said "unfortunately", I meant "whether we like it or not".  (However, I myself am actually indifferent on the issue.)LakeKayak (talk) 01:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no sides here. We're all trying to make the article better. The focus of the article did get confused recently, so I can understand the impetus to suggest the title change. I think we're all just trying to clarify what this article is about, so it can be useful without being duplicative. Station1 (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Support Boroughs of New York City, Oppose "The five..." . This is an overview article specifically for NYC, not an article like country which can talk vaguely about how one of these things works in general.  SnowFire (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I can compromise with Boroughs of New York City. That would be feasible.LakeKayak (talk) 19:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I have changed my mind. It seems that your proposed title will be more suitable for the article than mine.LakeKayak (talk) 21:02, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Boroughs of New York City seems to cover all of the page's points of view. Randy Kryn 03:58, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Boroughs of New York City: per WP:NATURALDIS. Ebonelm (talk) 13:39, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose The article that we have here is about the history and structure of each of the boroughs that the city is comprised of. There already is an article about The five boroughs of New York City and it's called New York City. There is no rational argument offered here that the pluralized title The five boroughs of New York City makes the article any clearer; if anything it makes it all the more opaque. As an example of real-world usage typical of virtually every city neighborhood, Forest Hills, Queens is described in the lead sentence of that article as "a neighborhood in the Borough of Queens in New York City" and a reader hovering or clicking on each link can have a hope of understanding the content of each underlying article; a change to "a neighborhood in the Borough of Queens in New York City" only makes this more confusing. What exactly is the difference between "The five boroughs of New York City" and "New York City"? Alansohn (talk) 15:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The proposed title has been shifted to Boroughs of New York City in the discussion of this article. I cannot see your argument.  Perhaps, you could give a specific Wikipedia policy to support your side.  That may help me see your objection clearer.LakeKayak (talk) 20:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The article is about the specific administrative divisions, not all five of them combined. All five of them combined is called New York City, which we already have an article on ( captured this exact sentiment). Also, I oppose "Boroughs of New York City" too because all of the instances of this specific administrative division (i.e. the bullet points about the five boroughs) are described as an overview. Moving the page to this title, which suggests the page is talking about all five of the boroughs combined, would make this an article about New York City.. epicgenius (talk) 01:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * (continued from above) Okay. In this case, we have another issue.  I actually found this page through a link on North American regional phonology.  I excepted to the linked page to discuss what about the five boroughs, so I was rather surprised to see the page entitled "Borough (New York City)".  And the fact that "Five boroughs" redirects here isn't very helpful either.  If this page is not intended to discuss the five boroughs, then we at least should fix the link on the page North American regional phonology to a more suitable link.  While we probably also should redirect "Five boroughs", that one would need a broader consensus for.LakeKayak (talk) 19:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Those are two separate issues. The link from North American regional phonology looks good to me. The phrase is "no research has confirmed differences of accent between the city's boroughs." I think someone clicking on "borough" in this case most likely would want an explanation of what a borough is, in the context used, and would find the answer in this article. As to five boroughs, I have no opinion at this point; maybe it should be a dab page, or discussed at WP:RfD after this is done. Station1 (talk) 19:42, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Support Boroughs of New York City. The present title suggests the article is about the concept of boroughs in New York, but the article covers more than that, including info on the five boroughs and their relation to each other. Additionally, a WP:NATURALDIS/descriptive title will work better than the parentheses.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Boroughs of New York City. Agree with much of the support above. Natural disambiguation is better than parentheses. This article is about the boroughs themselves and not just what they are, or what make them different from boroughs in other regions. Regarding WP:SINGULAR, see Naming conventions (plurals). In particular note the exceptions including Articles on groups of country subdivisions... which seems to apply in this case. PaleAqua  (talk) 21:56, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Boroughs of New York City. As others have said, this is easily the most natural term. Wolfdog (talk) 21:58, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Boroughs of New York City as the natural disambiguation here. It makes the most sense. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It's fine as is. Boroughs of New York City is also acceptable. But the article is more about the concept and term "borough" as it applies to New York City, and not so much about the boroughs themselves. Although it has that too. Herostratus (talk) 03:23, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Summary
Summary of editors who support a move to Boroughs of New York City: If I have misrepresented anyone's view, please speak up. It seems to me that both the current and proposed titles are valid. The discussion above seems to revolve around what the focus of the article actually is (or should be). Consensus seems strongly to favour the inclusion of a description of the boroughs rather than limiting the article to the subject of what a borough is. Therefore I am planning to move the article shortly. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 25 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Boroughs aren't counties
I'll need to you to verify this claim. The issue is that each borough is listed as a separate county of New York State.LakeKayak (talk) 14:59, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
 * True, just because they are coextensive does not mean that they are the same. In fact, while NYS counties have their own county governments, NYC boroughs do not have NYS county governments and fall under NYC jurisdiction. But, the NYC government website says Each City borough is also State county. So they are county-level boroughs, or "county-boroughs" I'd say, but they differ from regular counties in that they lack county governments or seats. epicgenius (talk) 15:17, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Under New York State law, each county must have its own prosecutor's office, hence why New York City doesn't have a singular prosecutor's office, but one for each borough, as each borough is a county. Also, when a couple of deer swam the Harlem River from the Bronx into Manhattan, there was some confusion as to what to do with them, as Manhattan and the Bronx are two separate counties, and state law said the deer should be released somewhere within the county in which they were captured, which was impossible to do in New York County.  71.226.227.121 (talk) 08:36, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

No real data to back up claim
A single sentence from a New York based paper, with no data or references is used to substantiate the claim that Queens is "the most ethnically diverse county in the United States". Reference...O'Donnell, Michelle (July 4, 2006). "In Queens, It's the Glorious 4th, and 6th, and 16th, and 25th ...". New York Times. Retrieved July 20, 2014.

The second part of the sentence, "as well as the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world", is backed by an article that doesn't even mention ethnic diversity and a dead link.

Reference...Christine Kim, Demand Media. "Queens, New York, Sightseeing". USA TODAY. Retrieved March 20, 2016. and Andrew Weber (April 30, 2013). "Queens". NewYork.com. Retrieved March 20, 2016.

My personal opinion is there should be some solid data to back such an ostentatious claim. TexasRedChili (talk) 00:41, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

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Nassau as "western part" of Queens County?? -- I think not.
"Queens included a western part, which was split-off during the consolidation to become Nassau County". This appears to be a typo. I am not o geographich expert but Nassau seems like "eastern part." Sorry if I'm missing the obvious.Jamesdowallen (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

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gdp per capita
none of the sources specify gdp per capita. i assume someone just took the county gdp and divided it by the borough population but this is meaningless. the product of a county has nothing to do with its population, especially in a place like manhattan where a huge part of its workforce lives in other counties. this column should be removed.--108.14.233.183 (talk) 22:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)