Elizabeth is the county seat of Union County, New Jersey, and the state's fourth-most-populous city, with about 137,000 residents across a dense urban footprint just across Newark Bay from Staten Island and roughly twenty miles southwest of Manhattan. Its position at the heart of the New York metropolitan area — beside Newark Liberty International Airport and the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal — makes it one of the region's most consequential working cities. Elizabeth holds a foundational place in New Jersey history. Settlers known as the Elizabethtown Associates purchased land west of Newark Bay in 1664, and the settlement they founded — named for Lady Elizabeth Carteret — became the first permanent English community in New Jersey. Elizabethtown served briefly as the colony's capital and grew as a seaport and manufacturing center on the Elizabeth River and Arthur Kill. The city incorporated in 1855 and became the seat of Union County. Today Elizabeth is defined by its port and its diversity. The Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal is among the busiest container ports on the East Coast, and the city's neighborhoods — Elmora, Peterstown, Midtown, the West End, and the Elizabethport waterfront — are home to long-established communities from Latin America, the Caribbean, Portugal, and elsewhere, alongside a historic Modern Orthodox Jewish community centered in Elmora. The Elizabeth Avenue corridor anchors the city's commercial and cultural life. Elizabeth Public Schools, one of New Jersey's Abbott districts, serves a large student body across the city. Commuting is a defining feature of daily life: NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line stop in Elizabeth, and the New Jersey Turnpike and Routes 1&9 run through it. Elizabeth suits people who want urban, transit-connected living with direct access to New York, the port and airport economy, and a city rich in history and multicultural character.