Elizabeth is a city and the county chair of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a sum population of 137,298, making it New Jersey’s fourth-most-populous city, after adjacent to Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson. The 2020 population was an addition of 12,329 (9.9%) from the 124,969 counted in the 2010 census. The Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program calculated that the city’s population was 135,407 in 2021, ranking the city the 207th-most-populous in the country.

Elizabeth, originally called “Elizabethtown” and share of the Elizabethtown Tract, was founded in 1664 by English settlers. The town was not named for Queen Elizabeth I as many people may assume, but rather for Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret, one of the two original Proprietors of the colony of New Jersey. She was the daughter of Philippe de Carteret II, 3rd Seigneur de Sark and Anne Dowse. The town served as the first capital of New Jersey. During the American Revolutionary War, Elizabethtown was each time attacked by British forces based on Manhattan and Staten Island, culminating in the Battle of Springfield which decisively defeated British attempts to get New Jersey. After independence, it was from Elizabethtown that George Washington embarked by boat to Manhattan for his 1789 inauguration. There are numerous memorials and monuments of the American Revolution in Elizabeth.

On March 13, 1855, the City of Elizabeth was created by an exploit of the New Jersey Legislature, combining and replacing both Elizabeth Borough (which dated encourage to 1740) and Elizabeth Township (which had been formed in 1693), subject to the results of a referendum held upon March 27, 1855. On March 19, 1857, the city became part of the newly created Union County. Portions of the city were taken to form Linden Township on March 4, 1861.

The first major industry, the Singer Sewing Machine Company came to Elizabeth and employed as many as 2,000 people. In 1895, it wise saying one of the first car companies, when Electric Carriage and Wagon Company was founded to fabricate the Electrobat, joined soon by another electric car builder, Andrew L. Riker. The Electric Boat Company got its start building submarines for the United States Navy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, beginning taking into account the foundation of USS Holland (SS-1) in 1897. These pioneering naval craft [known as A-Class] were developed at Lewis Nixon’s Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth between the years 1896–1903. Elizabeth grew in parallel to its sister city of Newark for many years, but has been more flourishing in retaining a middle-class presence and was mostly spared riots in the 1960s.