New York Harbor

New York Harbor is divided between the Upper Harbor and the Lower Harbor. The Upper Harbor is where the majority of piers are, along the shorelines of New Jersey, Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Lower Harbor is lined with parks, beaches and natural areas. The dividing line is at the Narrows, between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, finished in 1964, crosses the Narrows and marks the division clearly.

The Upper Harbor has several offshoots, like the Newark, Bayonne and Elizabeth, New Jersey waterfronts where most commercial port activity in New York Harbor now takes place.

The entire harbor is an ice-free arm of the Atlantic Ocean and thus tidal. It is formed by the confluence of the Hudson River and the estuary called the East River. Through the Meadowlands and Raritan Bay it is also the mouths of many small streams and rivers flowing through New Jersey, such as the Hackensack, Newark and Raritan Rivers.

New York Harbor is referred to by some as the worlds largest natural harbor. It has the distinction of not requiring dredging of silt, nor does it flood along its shores.

There are several islands in the harbor: Ellis Island, Governors' Island and Bedloe, or Liberty Island. Whether the East River north of the Brooklyn Bridge is part of the harbor proper has always been subject to debate.

The Harbor was found by Europeans beginning in the early 1500s. Verrazzano probably found it, Hudson found it, and numerous other explorers claimed to have found a large body of water in a protected harbor. Due to the lack of knoweledge of the time it's not exactly clear which European found it first. They may have been in Long Island Sound, or Delaware Bay, too. But the Native Americans knew of it, and used it as a major trading route.

New York Harbor is still one of the largest venues for shipping of goods in the world.