The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined Manhattan on its march uptown until the current day. It has been called "the single most important document in New York City's development," and the plan has been described as encompassing the "republican predilection for control and balance ... [and] distrust of nature". It was described by the Commission that created it as combining "beauty, order and convenience."

Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is coextensive with New York County, the smallest county by geographical area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entirely on Manhattan Island near the southern tip of the state, Manhattan constitutes the center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area. Manhattan serves as New York City's economic and administrative center and has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world.