Northeast megalopolis in the context of "New York City"

An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbanism, the term "urban area" contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets; in urban sociology or urban anthropology, it often contrasts with natural environment.

The development of earlier predecessors of modern urban areas during the urban revolution of the 4th millennium BCEled to the formation of human civilization and ultimately to modern urban planning, which along with other human activities such as exploitation of natural resources has led to a human impact on the environment.

A conurbation is a region consisting of a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urbanised area in which transportation has developed to link areas. They create a single urban labour market or travel to work area.

Conurbations often emerged in coal-mining regions during the period of the Industrial Revolution.Patrick Geddes coined the term in his book Cities in Evolution (1915). He drew attention to the ability of the new technology at the time of electric power and motorised transport to allow cities to spread and agglomerate together, and gave as examples "Midlandton" in England, the Ruhr in Germany, Randstad in the Netherlands, and the Northeastern Seaboard in the United States.

Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the smallest county by area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entirely on Manhattan Island near the southern tip of the state, Manhattan is centrally located in the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area. Manhattan serves as New York City's economic and administrative center and has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world.

Present-day Manhattan was originally part of Lenape territory. European settlement began with the establishment of a trading post by Dutch colonists in 1624 on Manhattan Island; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The territory came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York, based in present-day Lower Manhattan, served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor greeted millions of arriving immigrants in the late 19th century and is a world symbol of the United States and its ideals. Manhattan became a borough during the consolidation of New York City in 1898, and houses New York City Hall, the seat of the city's government. Harlem in Upper Manhattan became the center of what is now known as the cultural Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, part of the Stonewall National Monument, is considered the birthplace in 1969 of the modern gay-rights movement, cementing Manhattan's central role in LGBTQ culture. Manhattan was the site of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.