Destinations Menu
RSS
UNITED STATES | Long Island, New York Travel Guide
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Long Island, New York
Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan, New York (cc)
Photo: Lars Aronsson
Long Island
Long Island is about 100 miles long, and is the largest island adjoining the continental United States. Its widest point spans about 20 miles. The island reached its present geological form about 6,000 to 8,000 years ago.
Long Island’s two counties, Nassau and Suffolk, are divided into townships. The island’s only two cities are in Nassau County. Glen Cove, which at the time had only 27,000 residents, became a city in 1918, and Long Beach in 1922. Within each township are countless villages and hamlets.
Nassau and Suffolk counties have populations of 1.2 million and 1.3 million, respectively, and Long Island, 2,698,800, nearly 27% of them Italian Americans. The fastest growing town here is Brookhaven, founded in 1645, and now with a population of 430,000.
Long Island has 23 state parks and more than 50 county parks, including three with bird-watching, nature trails and picnicking facilities: 153-acre Nissequogue State Park in Kings Park; 40-acre Cold Spring Harbor on Route 25A; and 98-acre Shadmore in Montauk. It also has more than 100 museums and some 7,000 extant structures built prior to the 20th century.
Access to the Island is by bridge or tunnel, via Queens and Brooklyn. Bridges are the Triboro (from Manhattan or The Bronx), Whitestone and Throgs Neck (from The Bronx), the Queensboro, a/k/a the 59th Street Bridge (from Manhattan), and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (from Staten Island). Tunnels from Manhattan are the Midtown Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The major east-west routes on Long Island are the Long Island Expressway (tagged the “Big LIE” because of frequent traffic tie-ups), Northern State Parkway, Southern State Parkway and Sunrise Highway. North/south routes include the Cross Island Parkway, Meadowbrook State Parkway and Wantagh State Parkway.
Last updated January 12, 2011
Posted in United States | Long Island
Explore the Destination
Amenities and Resources
Weather Forecast
- Reported on:
Sat, 12/21/2024 - 03:51
- Reported on:
Trending Themes:
Guides to Popular Ski Resorts
-
Ischgl is a small mountain village turned hip ski resort, with massive appeal among the party-hearty young crowds. It is... Read More
-
Andorra la Vella is its own little world, and not just because it’s a 290-square-mile independent principality (a fifth the... Read More
-
Bariloche (officially San Carlos de Bariloche) is the place to be seen. It is to Argentina what Aspen is to the... Read More
-
Aspen is America's most famous ski resort. And that's an understatement. For, as a ski complex, Aspen is unsurpassed. Its... Read More
-
Zermatt is a small but glamorous mountain resort town, with a population of approximately 5,700. It is one of Switzerland's... Read More
-
St. Moritz is a glitzy, alpine resort town in the celebrated Engadin Valley of Switzerland, with huge notoriety as the... Read More
-
Lake Tahoe is the premier lake resort of America, and the largest alpine lake in all of North America. It is an absolutely... Read More
-
St. Anton, Sankt Anton am Arlberg in German, is Austria's premier ski-bum resort! It's actually a small village cum... Read More
-
Kitzbühel, a small, Tyrolian resort town in the Kitzbüheler Alps, comes with international renown and huge snob appeal, and... Read More