Five boroughs

A borough is one of the five major administrative divisions of New York City. Boroughs have existed since the consolidation of the city in 1898, when the city and each borough assumed their current boundaries. Each of the five boroughs is coextensive with a respective county, which are the primary administrative divisions of New York State. The five boroughs are Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

The term borough was adopted to describe a form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city in 1898. Under the 1898 City Charter adopted by the New York State Legislature, a "borough" is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with populated areas within it. This system, in which New York City's borough governments are inferior to the powers of the citywide government, differs significantly from borough forms of government used in Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, in which a borough is an independent level of government, as well as from other borough forms used in other states or nations, for example Greater London.

The county governments were dissolved when New York City consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county.

New York City is often referred to collectively as the five boroughs. The term is used to refer to New York City as a whole unambiguously, avoiding confusion with any particular borough or with the Greater New York metropolitan area. The term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing. The term outer boroughs refers to the four boroughs excluding Manhattan, even though the geographic center of the city is along the Brooklyn–Queens border.

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