Where is Long Island City?
Long Island City is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City.
There is also a region of suburbs outside of New York City called Long Island, which is comprised of numerous individual towns.
These are two different places.
Therefore the name ‘Long Island City’ can be confusing – because the name suggests that it’s a suburban community outside of New York City’s boundaries. The name suggests that it’s situated within the region of Long Island. But this is incorrect – Long Island City is in Queens.
Above is a map showing the location of Long Island City. It clarifies where the neighborhood of LIC is situated in relation to the suburbs of Long Island.
Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City
View of Manhattan from Long Island City
Why does Long Island City have such a confusing name?
The reason that the neighborhood is called Long Island City is the following: Before 1898 the county of Queens was not part of New York City (NYC was only comprised of the island of Manhattan and part of the Bronx). Areas that are now part of Queens were independent municipalities, and the whole county was considered part of Long Island.
The iconic Pepsi-Cola sign in Gantry Plaza State Park
Queens county covered a large section of the island (approx. 550 miles²/1420 km²). Among the numerous towns and villages (including Flushing, Jamaica and Hempstead) there was a ‘county seat,’ which was the civic center for the county. This is where the court, jail, etc were located. As you can imagine, Long Island City was the county seat (though not for the entire time). This is why there is an area called ‘Court Square’ (and a subway station by that name).
Long Island City riverfront
Long Island City was established as a full-fledged city (by consolidating several neighboring villages and hamlets) in 1870. Then in 1898 it was consolidated into the Greater City of New York. At that time, approx. 2/3 of Queens county was separated and established as ‘Nassau County’ – which did not become part of NYC. The section of Queens county that remained (now only 1/3 the size) became the borough of Queens.
Silvercup Studios in Long Island City
From colonial times, ‘Long Island’ referred to communities and farms on Brooklyn and Queens. After the 1940’s there started to be a buildup of new residential suburbs further on the island, outside the city boundaries. From that point, ‘Long Island’ came to refer to the suburbs outside the city, and no longer referred to Brooklyn and Queens.