The Harbor sees thousands of ships every year, which carry millions of metric tons of cargo from all over the world. It's located where the Hudson River meets the New York Bay and further, the Atlantic Ocean.

Today seated right below the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Battery Weed once guarded the city against ships approaching from the Atlantic Ocean.

Let's get something straight. The East River is actually no river. It's a tidal strait! This body of water connects two oceans or two seas, that being the New York Bay in the south and the Long Island Sound to the north.

Because of its proximity to the Long Island Sound, the East River was once known as the Sound River.

Pictured here, Throgs Neck Bridge connects boroughs of the Bronx and Queens over the span of the East River. This suspension bridge was completed in 1961.

Before 1939, when the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge opened, the RFK Bridge (also known as the Triborough), was the only way cars could get from the Bronx to Queens and vice versa.

Sited on a peninsula at the head of Little Neck Bay (where the East River becomes the Long Island Sound), Fort Totten is a park and former active US Army installation.

The west side of New York City is bounded by the Hudson River. It was named for Englishman Henry Hudson, who explored the river in 1609.

The Hudson River connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York. Like the East River, the Lower Hudson isn't actually a river either: since its sources are both fresh and seawater, it's an estuary!

On the tricentennial of the founding of the Hudson River and the centennial of the invention of the steamship by Robert Fulton, a river-long celebration took place both in New York City and a handful of Hudson River towns.

Other names for the Hudson included Mahicannittuck (Mohican), Cahohatatea (Iroquiois), and Mauritius (Dutch).

Partially man-made and partially natural, Jamaica Bay is a large estuary with numerous marshy islands. Most of the waters and marshes have been protected since 1972 as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area (a 26,607-acre landscape/seascape that also includes sections along the southeastern shore of Staten Island and a peninsula in northern New Jersey).

This tour gives us just a brief overview of the bodies of water that surround the city and reminds us of how connected and dependant we are on these waterways.