About 142,000 people live in Elizabeth, a dense, working port city right beside Newark Airport and the container docks, and it was the first English settlement in New Jersey, founded in 1664. It is a very international place. You will find Portuguese, Dominican, Colombian, Haitian and Polish communities, and the restaurants along Elizabeth Avenue and Spring Street reflect them. Portugal Day in June is a big local event.
Visitors mostly use Elizabeth as a practical base. The train station puts Manhattan about 15 miles away, and Jersey Gardens is the big outlet mall. History is here too, at the Old Elizabeth Town district and Boxwood Hall. Day to day it is busy and urban, with quieter, leafy pockets like Elmora. Housing is pricey and rising because of spillover from New York City, and older multi-family homes are common. Be aware of higher crime in Elizabethport, Frog Hollow and parts of Midtown at night, industrial air quality near the port, and flooding along the river and bay, as seen in Sandy and Ida.
Cities with a similar character, anywhere on the site.
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- Known as
- Gateway to the Garden State; The Port City; Home of Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal; Birthplace of New Jersey's first English settlement (Elizabethtown)
- Founded
- 1664 settled as Elizabethtown (first English-speaking settlement in New Jersey); 1855 incorporated as a city
- Languages
- English; Spanish; Portuguese; Haitian Creole; Polish; Arabic; Gujarati
- Airports
- Newark Liberty International (EWR), about 3 miles north; LaGuardia (LGA), about 20 miles northeast; JFK, about 25 miles east; Teterboro (TEB), about 15 miles north (private and charter only)
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20%; bars $1-2 per drink; taxis and rideshare 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhops $2-5 per bag; counter service optional
About this data
Population 141,675, land area 12.32 sq mi, median value $449,300 and median rent $1,523 are from Census QuickFacts (Vintage 2025 and ACS). Metro figure 20,112,448 is the given New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA, shared with New York City; Elizabeth is not the anchor city. Visitor website Go Elizabeth NJ and its events page were seen in search results and not load-tested. Elevation, coordinates, founding, event months, hotel ranges, tipping, cost-of-living index, crime rates and airport distances are approximate or from general knowledge and not verified in this pass.
