Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, and today northern Astoria (Ditmars-Steinway) to the northwest, and East Elmhurst to the north and northeast. Jackson Heights has an ethnically diverse community, with half the population having been foreign-born since the 2000s. The New York Times has called it "the most culturally diverse neighborhood in New York, if not on the planet." According to the 2010 United States census, the neighborhood has a population of 108,152.
The site of Jackson Heights was a vast marsh named Trains Meadow until 1909 when Edward A. MacDougall's Queensboro Corporation bought 325 acres (132 ha) of undeveloped land and farms. The Queensboro Corporation named the land Jackson Heights after Jackson Avenue, which was in turn named after John C. Jackson, a descendant of one of the original Queens families. He was a respected Queens entrepreneur. Jackson Avenue was the northern border of the ambitious Garden City development of the Queensboro Corporation. Further development arose through the development of transit and "garden apartments". "Garden homes" soon became prevalent in Jackson Heights. During the 1960s, Jackson Heights's white middle-class families began moving to the suburbs, and nonwhite residents began moving in.
