Administrative divisions of New York (state) in the context of "Monroe (town), New York"

The boroughs of New York City are the five major governmental districts that compose New York City. They are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of the State of New York: The Bronx is Bronx County, Brooklyn is Kings County, Manhattan is New York County, Queens is Queens County, and Staten Island is Richmond County.

All five boroughs of New York came into existence with the creation of modern New York City in 1898, when New York County (then including the Bronx), Kings County, Richmond County, and part of Queens County were consolidated within one municipal government under a new city charter. All former municipalities within the newly consolidated city were dissolved.

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/km), 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 km) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km), 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.

The City of Greater New York was the consolidation of the City of New Yorkwith Brooklyn, western Queens County, and Staten Island, which took effect on January 1, 1898. New York had already annexed the Bronx (west of the Bronx River in 1874, east of the Bronx River in 1895), so the consolidated city sprawled across five counties, which became the five Boroughs of modern New York. Eastern Queens County was excluded and later became Nassau County.

Buffalo is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River on the Canada–United States border. It is the second-most populous city in New York, with a population of 278,349 at the 2020 census. The Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, with over 1.16 million residents, is the 51st-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Buffalo is the county seat of Erie County.

Before the 17th century, the region was inhabited by nomadic Paleo-Indians who were succeeded by the Neutral, Erie, and Iroquois nations. In the early 17th century, the French began to explore the region. In the 18th century, Iroquois land surrounding Buffalo Creek was ceded through the Holland Land Purchase, and a small village was established at its headwaters. Buffalo was selected as the terminus of the Erie Canal in 1825, which led to its incorporation in 1832 and stimulated its growth as the primary inland port between the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean. Transshipment made Buffalo the world's largest grain port in that era. After the coming of railroads greatly reduced the canal's importance, the city became the second-largest railway hub (after Chicago), and the city came to be dominated by steel production by the 20th century. Later, deindustrialization and the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway saw the city's economy decline and diversify. It developed its service industries, such as health care, retail, tourism, logistics, and education, while retaining some manufacturing.

Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population is 338,329, making it the state's third-most densely populated county outside New York City after Nassau and neighboring Westchester counties. The county seat and largest hamlet is New City. Rockland County is accessible via both the New York State Thruway, which crosses the Hudson River to Westchester via the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Tappan Zee, ten exits up from the NYC border; and the Palisades Parkway, four exits up, via the George Washington Bridge. The county's name derives from "rocky land", as the area has been aptly described, largely due to the Hudson River Palisades. The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.

Rockland County is the smallest county by area in New York outside New York City. It comprises five towns, eighteen incorporated villages, eighteen census-designated places, eight hamlets and eleven defunct communities. Rockland County is designated as a Preserve America Community, and nearly a third of the county's area is parkland. The county has the largest Jewish population percentage of any U.S. county, at 31.4%, or 90,000 residents. Rockland also ranked 80th on the list of highest-income counties by median household income in the United States, with a median household income of $82,534 according to the 2010 census.