Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and its historical birthplace. It may be known locally as simply The City. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1, 1683, as one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. The borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers; several small adjacent islands; and Marble Hill, a small neighborhood now on the U.S. mainland, physically connected to the Bronx and separated from the rest of Manhattan by the Harlem River.Manhattan is often described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and Manhattan is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization: the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in Manhattan, and the borough has been the setting for numerous books, films, and television shows. Manhattan is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders, which equals US$ today. Manhattan real estate has since become among the most expensive in the world, with the value of Manhattan Island, including real estate, estimated to exceed US$3 trillion in 2013; median residential property sale prices in Manhattan exceeded US1,500$/ft2 as of 2017, and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the highest retail rents in the world, at US3,000$/ft2 in 2017.
