Ellis Island

For six decades, Ellis Island was the front door to America. Between 1892 and 1954, about 12 million immigrants passed through its federal inspection station in New York Harbor, a process that took a few hours for most arrivals and weeks of detention for the unlucky few. The National Park Service estimates that some 40 percent of Americans can trace at least one ancestor through its Great Hall, and the restored main building has been a national immigration museum since 1990.

The island's geography is as layered as its history. It began as a natural island of about three acres and was enlarged with landfill to its current 27.5 acres. That growth set up a long fight between New York and New Jersey. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the original island stays in New York while the landfill added later belongs to New Jersey, which leaves about 83 percent of Ellis Island in New Jersey.

Ellis Island has been part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument since 1965. Run by the National Park Service, it is reached by ferry from Battery Park in Manhattan and from Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

• New Jersey
  The Garden State, densely settled between two cities located in
• New York
  The Empire State, from Manhattan to the Adirondacks located in
• New York City
  The largest city in the United States near
• Port of New York and New Jersey
  The great harbor that built a metropolis near
• The Statue of Liberty
  The copper colossus in New York Harbor part of