Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Nassau County, New York.

Official Website

Overview

Nassau County is situated on western Long Island, bordering New York City's borough of Queens to the west, and Suffolk County to the east. It is the most densely populated and second-most populous county in New York State outside of New York City, with which it maintains extensive rail and highway connectivity, and is considered one of the central counties within the New York metropolitan area. Nassau County contains two cities, three towns, 64 incorporated villages, and more than 60 unincorporated hamlets. Nassau County has a designated police department, fire commission, and elected executive and legislative bodies.

A 2012 Forbes article based on the American Community Survey reported Nassau County as the most expensive county and one of the highest income counties in the United States, and the most affluent in the state of New York, with four of the nation's top ten towns by median income located in the county. Nassau County high school students often feature prominently as winners of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and similar STEM-based academic awards. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the Town of Oyster Bay and the Old Westbury campus of New York Institute of Technology are both globally prominent life sciences research institutions in Nassau County.

The name of the county comes from an old name for Long Island, which was at one time named Nassau, after the Dutch family of King William III of England, the House of Nassau, itself named for the German town of Nassau. The county colors (orange and blue) are also the colors of the House of Orange-Nassau.

Several alternate names had been considered for the county, including "Bryant," "Matinecock" (a village within the county currently has that name), "Norfolk" (presumably because of the proximity to Suffolk County), and "Sagamore." However, "Nassau" had the historical advantage of having at one time been the name of Long Island itself, and was the name most mentioned after the new county was proposed in 1875.

For a complete history, please see Wikipedia.

Adjacent Counties

• Fairfield County, Conn.
• Suffolk County
• Queens County
• Westchester County

Towns

• Hempstead
• Mineola (County Seat)
• North Hempstead
• Oyster Bay

List of Towns, Hamlets & Villages in Nassau County

Links

History of Nassau County

Oyster Bay Nat'l Wildlife Refuge

Sagamore Hill - President Teddy Roosevelt's Summer White House

Nat'l Reg. of Hist. Places