New York City borough

New York City is split into five different county-level administrative divisions called boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Unlike boroughs in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the New York City boroughs have limited powers, since they are administratively located below the city-level government.

Boroughs have existed since the consolidation of the city in 1898, when the city and each borough assumed their current boundaries. Currently, each of the boroughs is coextensive with a respective county, which are the primary administrative divisions of New York State. However, the boroughs have not always been coextensive with their respective counties. Before 1914, the Bronx consisted of the southern part of Westchester, and before 1899, the borough of Queens consisted of the western part of its namesake county.

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 other borough forms used in other states and Greater London.

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