Bronx, The

Bronx, The, borough of New York, New York State, United States. The only New York City borough on the mainland, its total land area of 109 sq km (42 sq mi) includes many islands, notably North and South Brother islands in the East River and Hart and City islands in Long Island Sound. Population 1,332,650 (2000).

The Bronx is primarily residential, with numerous apartments. Industrial activity, only a small fraction of New York's total, is concentrated in the southern section, and includes food processing, garment making, and other diversified manufacturing. Shipping concerns, warehouses, and the largest produce market in the north-east line the waterfront. A network of subways and elevated road systems provides rapid transport to all parts of New York. Traffic reaches Manhattan by ten bridges over the Harlem River.

Parts of the Bronx, especially in the south-east, are characterized by slums and urban decay; in contrast, Riverdale, adjoining the Hudson River, has landscaped estates and large one-family homes. The borough has many well-defined old neighbourhoods. More than one-fifth of the land area is in public parks, which includes the famous International Wildlife Conservation Park (commonly known as the Bronx Zoo), one of the world's largest. Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees professional baseball team, is also in the Bronx. Among the borough's many institutions of higher education are Fordham University (1841), the State University of New York Maritime College (1874), and the Bronx High School of Science. Points of interest include the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage (1812), where the writer lived from 1846 to 1849, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts (1971).

White settlement began when the Dutch West India Company acquired the area in 1639. That same year, Jonas Bronck, after whom the borough is named, established a farm there. The next settlers were led by Anne Hutchinson, a religious dissenter exiled by the Boston Puritans, and John Throckmorton, an outcast of the Anabaptists. Manorial estates were established by wealthy New York merchants.

The Bronx was part of Westchester County until the western part was annexed by New York in 1874 (the remainder was annexed in 1895). It remained an area of farms and small villages until the 1890s, when elevated subway and trolley lines were extended into the area and it began its rapid growth as a suburban community. In the 1840s, German and Irish railway workers arrived; they were displaced by other immigrants: Italians, Poles, Jews, and Greeks. By 1920 the population was more than 700,000. Its ethnic makeup changed after World War II, when many middle-income white families moved out of the borough and black and Puerto Rican populations increased. The borough remains one of the most densely populated and ethnically diverse areas in the United States.