Central Park is a national historic landmark located right in the center of Manhattan, between 59th and 110th Streets and Fifth and Eight Avenues. This New York City attraction receives an estimated 25 million visitors every year. You can easily spend an entire day wandering around this 843-acre park going to the Central Park Zoo, Wildlife Park, two skating rinks, a public pool and the Great Lawn. The Boathouse is a great venue for brunch or lunch, though prices are steep.

Carriage Horses: take a ride through the park on a horse-driven carriage.

Ice Skating: strap on your skates and head to one of two ice skating rinks - Wollman and Lasker. Lasker Rink converts to an outdoor swimming pool during the summer.

Central Park Carousel: installed in 1951, the carousel is one of the largest in the entire United States with 58 hand-carved horses and two chariots created in the early 1900s.

Playgrounds: children will enjoy the 21 playgrounds throughout the park, the largest being the three acre Heckscher Playground.

Theatre: from the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre and the Delacorte Theatre to the Great Lawn and Public Theatre, there are many theatre-venues in the Park, most open-air. Enjoy music, Shakespearean productions and more over the course of the year.

Central Park Zoo: visit an indoor rainforest, leafcutter ant colony, chilled penguin house and the polar bear pool among many other animal exhibits at the zoo.

Sports: rowboats and kayaks, baseball and birding, and even rock climbing can be found in Central Park. You can even just bring a frisbee to the Great Lawn to toss with friends.

New York City purchased the terrain for Central Park in 1853 when the area was home to sheds, quarries, pig farms and swamps. Three years later, the city organized a competition for the park's design, desiring a rival to the great parks of London and Paris. The final layout design by Frederic Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux was chosen and dubbed "The Greensward Plan."

Within the preliminary park plan was an English-style landscape with large meadows, lakes and hills; winding pedestrian roads would be invisible to anyone outside of the park with trees hiding the interior. Several hundred thousand trees had to be planted to convert the swamp areas to park. Fifteen years, three million cubic yards of soil, several bridges and reservoirs later and the park came to completion with the help of 20,000 workers.

During the late 1930s is when most of the sports facilities, the Wollman Rink and several playgrounds were installed. The zoo was also renovated and sculptures were installed.

By 1960, the park started to decline with graffiti, garbage and crime keeping tourists away. It wasn't until 1980 that the Central Park Conservancy was formed and Central Park began to take a turn for the better. The entire area was restored over the years and is now as beautiful as it was when it was first created.c