Long Island is an island located in southeastern New York, United States, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs (Queens and Brooklyn) of New York City, and two of which (Nassau and Suffolk) are mainly suburban or rural. In popular usage, the term "Long Island" generally refers only to Nassau and Suffolk counties in order to differentiate them from New York City, though all four counties on the island are part of the New York metropolitan area.
Nassau County is more developed than Suffolk County, with pockets of rural affluence within the Gold Coast of the North Shore and the Five Towns on the South Shore. South Shore communities are built along protected wetlands of the main land mass as well as white sand beaches of Outer Barrier Islands fronting on the Atlantic Ocean. Old money from the time of the Revolutionary War populated the island and still does to this day, amongst many others including recent immigrants. Wealthy Americans and Europeans in the gilded age built lavish country homes on the North Shore of Nassau County. Today, although many of the massive estates have been demolished, many exist in their original state, while others have become parks, arboretums, universities and museums.
Long Island is geographically part of the Mid Atlantic, however many towns and hamlets along the island's north shore, in western Nassau County and in eastern Suffolk County, such as Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson and Sag Harbor seem to resemble New England towns, while many of the towns and hamlets along the south shore, such as Long Beach, Valley Stream, and Babylon seem to resemble Mid-Atlantic coastal communities, especially those on the shore between New Jersey and Virginia.
The glaciers melted and receded to the north, resulting in the difference between the North Shore beaches and the South Shore beaches. The North Shore beaches are rocky from the remaining glacial debris, while the South Shore's are crisp, clear, outwash sand. Running along the center of the island like a spine is the moraine left by the glaciers. Jayne's Hill, at 401 feet, is the highest hill along either moraine; another well-known summit is Bald Hill in Brookhaven Town, not far from its geographical center at [Middle Island]. The glaciers also formed Lake Ronkonkoma, a kettle lake.
Long Island has a climate similar to other coastal areas of the Northeastern United States; it has warm, humid summers and cool wet winters. Long Island is classified as humid subtropical by some definitions. The Atlantic Ocean helps bring afternoon sea breezes that temper the heat in the warmer months and limit the frequency and severity of thunderstorms.
Long Island is somewhat vulnerable to hurricanes. Its northern location and relatively cool waters tend to weaken storms to below hurricane strength by the time they reach Long Island, although despite this, some storms have made landfall at Category 1 or greater strength, including two unnamed Category 3 storms in 1938 (New England Hurricane of 1938) and 1944, Hurricane Donna in 1960, Hurricane Belle in 1976, Hurricane Gloria in 1985, Hurricane Bob in 1991 (brushed the eastern tip) and Hurricane Floyd in 1999. (There is debate among climatologists as to whether Hurricane Floyd made landfall as a Category 1 or as a very strong "almost hurricane strength" tropical storm. The official records note it as the latter.)
Montaukett tribe and their neighbors At the time of European contact, the Lenape people (named the Delaware by Europeans) inhabited the western end of the Island, and spoke the Munsee dialect of the Algonquian language family. Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to record an encounter with these people when he entered what is now New York Bay in 1524. The eastern portion of the island was inhabited by speakers of the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language group of the same language family, indicative of their ties to the aboriginal peoples inhabiting what is now Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Indians called Long Island "Paumanok", which meant "land of tribute". This name, by the way, is among many others recorded in historical accounts under different spellings- partly because the Indians did not write and early colonists were not good spellers.
Long Island Native American History is home to two Indian reservations, Poospatuck Reservation and Shinnecock Reservation. Both Reservations find their home in Suffolk County. Numerous island place names (Towns) are Native American in origin.
The Battle of Long Island. The western portion of Long Island was later settled by the Dutch, while the eastern region was settled by English Puritans from New Haven, Connecticut, settling in Southold on October 21, 1640.
The entirety of Long Island came under English dominion in 1664 when the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was taken over by the English and renamed New York. In 1683, the English established the three original counties on Long Island: Kings, Queens, and Suffolk.
During the American Revolutionary War, the island was captured from General George Washington early by the British in the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the entire war. The island remained a British stronghold until the end of the war, and was the center of much of General Washington's espionage activities due to the proximity to the British North American military headquarters in New York City. After the British victory on Long Island many Patriots fled, leaving mostly Loyalists behind.
In the 19th century, Long Island was still mainly rural and agricultural. The predecessor to the Long Island Rail Road began service in 1836 from the ferry terminal (to Manhattan) through Brooklyn to Jamaica in Queens, and completed the line to the east end of Long Island in 1844. From 1830 until 1930, population roughly doubled every twenty years, and several cities were incorporated, such as the City of Brooklyn in Kings County, and Long Island City in Queens.
The Brooklyn Bridge is the first of seven bridges constructed across the East River, connecting Long Island with the Borough of Manhattan (in background).Until the 1883 completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, the only connection between Long Island and the rest of the United States was by boat. Other bridges and tunnels followed, and a suburban character spread as population increased. On January 1, 1898, Kings County and portions of Queens were consolidated into The City of Greater New York, abolishing all cities and towns within them. The easternmost 280 square miles (730 km2) of Queens County, which were not part of the consolidation plan, separated from Queens in 1899 to form Nassau County.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Long Island began the transformation from backwoods and farms to the paradigm of the American suburb. Railroads made possible commuting suburbs before construction of the Long Island Expressway and other major roadways. Robert Moses created various parkway projects to span the island, along with state parks for the enjoyment of many. Gradually, development started to follow the parkways, with various communities springing up along the more traveled routes.
After World War II, Long Island's population skyrocketed, mostly in Nassau County and western Suffolk County. People who worked and lived in New York City moved out to Long Island in new developments built during the post-war boom. The most famous post-war development was the town of Levittown: the area became the first place to massively reproduce houses on a grand scale- providing opportunities for GIs returning home to start a family. The immigration waves of southern and eastern Europe, followed by more recent ones from Latin America, have been pivotal in creating the diversity on Long Island that many other American regions lack. These immigrations are reflected in the large Italian American, Irish American and Jewish American populations
Both the longest and the largest island in the contiguous United States, Long Island extends 118 miles eastward from New York Harbor to Montauk Point, and has a maximum north-to-south expanse of 23 miles between the northern Long Island Sound coast and the southern Atlantic coast. With a land area of 1,401 square miles, Long Island is the 11th largest island in the United States, the 148th largest island in the world, larger than any U.S. territory except Puerto Rico, and just smaller than the state of Rhode Island (1545 sq mi). Nine bridges and 13 tunnels (including railway tunnels) connect Brooklyn and Queens (and thus Long Island) to the three other boroughs of New York City. Ferries connect Suffolk County northward across Long Island Sound to the state of Connecticut. Two of New York City's major airports, La Guardia and JFK, are located on Long Island, in Queens
