About the town » Queens, Queens County, New York, United States

Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island, and to Nassau County further east on Long Island; in addition, Queens shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population (after Brooklyn), with a census-estimated 2,339,150 residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens County is also the second-most populous county in the U.S. state of New York, behind the neighboring borough of Brooklyn, which is coterminous with Kings County. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York City's boroughs, as well as in the United States. If each New York City borough were an independent city, Queens would also be the nation's fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Queens was established in 1683, as one of the original 12 counties of New York and was named for the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, the County of Queens included what is now Nassau County. Queens has the most diversified economy of the five boroughs of New York City and is home to JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. These airports are among the busiest in the world, causing the airspace above Queens to be the most congested in the country. Attractions in Queens include Flushing Meadows Park — whose Citi Field athletic stadium is home to the New York Mets baseball team — and the US Open tennis tournament; as well as Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silvercup Studios, and Aqueduct Racetrack. The borough has diverse housing, ranging from high-rise apartment buildings in the urban areas of western and central Queens, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, Astoria, and Long Island City, to suburban neighborhoods in the eastern part of the borough such as Little Neck, Douglaston, and Bayside.