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Overview

Technically, the 118 miles of Long Island includes the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens on the western edge, but in the popular imagination, 'Long Island' begins only where the city ends, in a mass of traffic-clogged expressways and suburbs that every teenager aspires to leave. (Levittown, the first planned 1950s subdivision, is in central Nassau County.) But there's plenty more out on 'Lawn-guy-land' (per the local accent). Push past the central belt of ’burbs to windswept dunes, proud stands of pine, glitzy summer resorts, fresh farms and wineries, a wealth of perfect Pleasantvilles and Mayberry-esque Main Streets and whaling and fishing ports established in the 17th century. Then you'll see why loyalists prefer the nickname 'Strong Island.'