New York metropolitan area eight subregions are often further divided. For instance, Long Island can be divided into its South and North Shores (usually when speaking about Nassau County and western Suffolk County) and the East End. The Hudson Valley and Connecticut are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the Northern Suburbs, largely because of the shared usage of the Metro-North Railroad system. The geographical, cultural, and economic center of the metropolitan area is New York City, which consists of five boroughs, each of which is also a county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and
Flags of New York City to which is added an arc of five five-pointed stars (representing each of the five boroughs) in blue above the seal. The dimensions of the Mayor's flag are set at 33 inches by 44 inches. The New York City Council uses a variant of the city flag, with the word "COUNCIL" underneath the seal. Currently, only Brooklyn and the Bronx have official borough flags. The other three boroughs have standard designs in current use, though they have never been officially adopted. Staten Island borough lawmakers pushed to have their flag officially recognized by the state in the 1990s and early