Towns On Long Island - Overview

Overview

The westernmost end of Long Island contains the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn (Kings County) and Queens (Queens County). The central and eastern portions contain the suburban Nassau and Suffolk counties. However, colloquial usage of the term "Long Island" usually refers only to Nassau and Suffolk counties. For example, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Long Island District is separate from that of New York City. The more dense and urban Brooklyn and Queens are not usually referred to as "Long Island", since they are a part of New York City, although before those counties amalgamated into the city, they were often so identified; at least as late as 1911, locations in Queens were still commonly referred to as being on Long Island. Some institutions in the New York City section of the island use the island's names, like Long Island University and Long Island Jewish Medical Center. The New York Islanders National Hockey League team intends to retain its name after their move from Nassau County to Brooklyn in 2015.

Nassau County is more developed than Suffolk County, and has pockets of rural affluence within the Gold Coast of the North Shore and the Five Towns area on the South Shore. South Shore communities are built along protected wetlands of the island and contain white sandy beaches of Outer Barrier Islands fronting on the Atlantic Ocean. Dutch and English settlers from the time before the American Revolutionary War, as well as communities of Native Americans, populated the island. The 19th century saw the infusion of the wealthiest Americans in the so-called Gold Coast of the North Shore, where wealthy Americans and Europeans in the Gilded Age built lavish country homes. Today, although many of the massive estates have been demolished, many others remain their original state or have become parks, arboretums, universities and museums.

Owing to economic growth and the suburbanization after World War II, Nassau was the fastest growing county in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s. Suffolk County remains less congested, despite substantial growth in the high technology and light manufacturing sectors since 1990, although traffic has been increasing in recent years. In its easternmost sections, Suffolk remains small-town rural, as in Greenport on the North Fork and some of the outward areas of The Hamptons, although summer tourism swells the population in those areas. Western Suffolk, such as the towns of Huntington and Babylon, are becoming increasingly populated and are beginning to resemble towns in Nassau.

According to the US Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey, Nassau and Suffolk counties have the 10th and 25th highest median household incomes in the nation, respectively. Additionally, Nassau County is the third-richest county per capita in New York State and the 30th richest in the nation, and it has the second-highest property taxes in the United States. Suffolk County has redeveloped North Fork potato fields into a burgeoning wine region. The South Fork is known for beach communities, including the world-renowned Hamptons, and for Montauk Point Lighthouse at the eastern tip of the island.