Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located at the westernmost end of Long Island and formerly an independent city, Brooklyn shares a land border with the borough and county of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, including the architecturally significant Brooklyn Bridge, and is connected to Staten Island by the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge.
The borough, as Kings County, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km2), is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), and the most populous county in the state, as of 2022. In the 2020 United States census, the borough had a population of 2,736,074. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city on Long Island, it would now be the fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km2) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km2), Kings County, one of the twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then-province of New York, is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area.
Brooklyn, named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, was founded by the Dutch in the 17th century and grew into a busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th century. On January 1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during the 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated and annexed, along with other areas, to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance with the new municipal charter of Greater New York. The borough continues to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. With Jews forming around a fifth of its population, the borough has been described as one of the main global hubs for Jewish culture. Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag, is Een Draght Mackt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch as "In unity there is strength".
Educational institutions in Brooklyn include the City University of New York's Brooklyn College, Medgar Evers College, and College of Technology, as well as Pratt Institute, Long Island University, and the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. In sports, basketball's Brooklyn Nets, and New York Liberty play at the Barclays Center. In the first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters, with associated gentrification, dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are now required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub for entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms, postmodern art, and design.
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