Manhattan
 Manhattan is 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. Its streets run east and west and its avenues run north and south. The east side covers everything east of Fifth Avenue; the West side everything to the west. Most of New York's best known tourist attractions are concentrated in Manhattan. As of 2000, the population comprised 1,537,195 people, but the county is geographically among the smallest in the United States with only 33 square miles (85 kmē) of land. Thus, it is by far the most densely populated county in both New York State and the entire United States.
The name Manhattan ("hilly island" or possibly "place of intoxication") is from the Algonquian languages of the earliest known inhabitants of the area. The island was purchased by Peter Minuit from the native Algonquins for 60 guilders worth of trade goods (today's value about $24). Explorers, however, paid the wrong tribe, who were glad to accept money for an island that did not belong to them. The first European discovery of Manhattan is generally credited to English explorer Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch, who first entered Upper New York Bay on September 11, 1609, and sailing up the lower Hudson River, anchored off the tip of northern Manhattan that night. However, the earlier Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano explored New York harbor in 1524, and a few months later so did the Portuguese Estevan Gomez; then later also recognized the Hudson River (calling it the Rio de San Antonio), and both, in all likelihood, saw Manhattan island while in New York Harbor.
The island was settled by the Dutch in 1613 as a fur trading post founded by Hendrick Christiansen; it must also be mentioned that Jan Rodrigues, the first African-American resident of New York, was among the first settlers. The original Dutch spelling of the island was Mannatthans. Later in 1623 it took the name of New Amsterdam. The Duke of York occupied it in 1664 and according to the Treaty of Breda ending the second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665 to 1667 it was officially recognized as English property (in exchange for the small island of Run in the East Indies).
Neighborhoods
- Marble Hill
- Inwood
- Washington Heights
- Hudson Heights
- Harlem
- Central Harlem
- Sugar Hill
- Mount Morris Park
- West Harlem
- Hamilton Heights
- Manhattanville
- Spanish Harlem (also called East Harlem, El Barrio or Italian Harlem)
- Upper West Side
- Morningside Heights
- Manhattan Valley
- Upper East Side
- Carnegie Hill
- Yorkville
- Lenox Hill
- Roosevelt Island
- Flatiron
- Midtown South
- Midtown
- Hell's Kitchen (also called Clinton)
- Murray Hill
- Kips Bay
- Sutton Place
- Turtle Bay
- Tudor City
- Koreatown
- Chelsea
- Gramercy
- Greenwich Village (also called the West Village)
- SoHo
- TriBeCa
- Lower East Side
- Chinatown
- Little Italy
- NoLIta (North Little Italy)
- East Village
- Alphabet City
- NoHo
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