The largest of the five boroughs, Queens has hosted two World's Fairs and is home to the city's two major airports, the Mets, and Queens College (whose heralded alumni include Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Simon, and Marvin Hamlisch). Queens is a far-reaching borough in the center of it all. It connects to Manhattan and the Bronx by bridge and to Brooklyn and Long Island by land.

Named for Queen Catherine, the wife of King Charles II of England, and colonized in 1683, the sprawling borough combines a taste of the suburbs with urban flair.

Numerous architectural styles typify the various neighborhoods, including old red brick buildings, row houses, and attached houses of the 1950s and 1960s. There are large estates in the aptly named area of Jamaica Estates, and a quaint old-fashioned, wall-enclosed residential community called Forest Hills Gardens. You will also find some modern office buildings springing up — along with movie studios — in Long Island City.

Not unlike Brooklyn, Queens has its share of ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The borough is most famous for its wonderful Greek restaurants in Astoria, Little India in Jackson Heights, and its own Chinatown in Flushing.