Brooklyn Brooklyn Brooklyn () is the most populous borough of New York City, with a census-estimated 2,648,771 residents in 2017. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it borders the borough of Queens, at the western end of Long Island. Brooklyn also has several bridge connections to the boroughs of Manhattan (across the East River) and Staten Island (across the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge). Since 1896, the borough has been coterminous with Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S. state of New York and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after the county of New York (which
East New York, Brooklyn of salt marshes and several creeks, which drained into Jamaica Bay. These areas were originally settled by the Jameco Native Americans, and later used by the Canarsee and Rockaway tribes as fishing grounds. In the 1650s, Dutch colonists began settling in the eastern sections of Brooklyn, forming the towns of Flatbush, Bushwick, and New Lots (the predecessor to East New York). The area along with the rest of Brooklyn and modern New York City was ceded to the British Empire in 1664. A few 18th Century roads, including the ferry road or "Palmer Turnpike" from Brooklyn to Jamaica, passed through