The biologically diverse ecosystem has several hundred species of flora and fauna 

The urban park lies between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan 

It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016, and is the most filmed location in the world 

Recreational activities include carriage-horse and bicycle tours, bicycling, sports facilities, and concerts and events such as Shakespeare in the Park 

In 1857, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan".  

Its size and cultural position make it a model for the world's urban parks. 

1919 - Parade for Returning Home from WW1  "New York City's 69th Regiment returned from World War I to great fanfare, marching up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to 115th Street. The backdrop here is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, site of the reviewing stand, where Governor Alfred E. Smith and Mayor John F. Hylan welcomed the troops home April 28, 1919."

2020 - Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park  Consisting of bronze figures of Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument commemorates the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Sponsored by the group Monumental Women and unveiled in August 2020, the monument is the first to be added to Central Park since 1965, the first since the Park became a landmark, and the first in the Park to depict actual women.

1880 - Alexander Hamilton  This larger-than-life-size statue depicts Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), the eminent statesmen for the fledgling nation of the United States. The monument, located along Central Park's East Drive at 83rd Street near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is unusual in that it is carved entirely of granite. Hamilton's grandson John C. Hamilton donated the piece to the City in 1880.

1925 - Balto  The glowing bronze of this statue on a rock outcropping near the East Drive at 67th Street reflects the loving pats of countless children and adults who recall the story of a heroic dog. In January 1925, the city of Nome, Alaska experienced an outbreak of diphtheria. At that time, Nome had a population of 1,429 people and there was only enough antitoxin serum in distant Anchorage to treat about 300 people exposed to the disease. A train line did run over 325 miles from Anchorage to Nenana, the station closest to Nome, but Nome was icebound seven months out of the year. Alaska's two open-cockpit planes were not safe in the frigid and windy weather. A relay of mushers and their dog-sled teams was the only way to deliver the fur-wrapped twenty-pound package of serum to the ailing community 674 miles from Nenana. The route followed the old Iditarod Trail used by mail drivers from Anchorage to Nome (now the route of the dog-sled championships). The 20 teams of over 200 dogs covered the frozen terrain at about six miles per hour, in blizzard conditions with temperatures of 50 degrees below zero. An international audience listened over their radios and read in their newspapers of the race to Nome. The last musher, Gunnar Kasson, and his team lead by Balto, a black and white Alaskan malamute, raced over the frozen tundra in only five days and seven hours - a world record time. Within days after the arrival of the serum, the epidemic, which had claimed five lives, was over.

1901 - U.S.S. Maine Monument  This monument commemorates those who perished in the U.S.S. Maine in 1898, killing three-quarters of the men on board. The battleship exploded and sank off the coast of Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War of 1898 for reasons still unknown. The inscription reads: To The Valient Seamen Who Perished In The Maine By Fate Unwarned In Death Unafraid. In 1913, the monument was placed at the Columbus Circle and 59th Street entrance to Central Park in New York City.

1876 - Daniel Webster Statue in Central Park  Sculptor Thomas Ball (1819-1911) created this larger-than-life bronze piece depicting Daniel Webster (1782-1852), the 19th century statesman known for his eloquence and excellent oratory. During the mid-19th century Ball sculpted a bust of Webster shortly before the Massachusetts senator died. His piece was such a success that he made a statuette of the figure that went on to be patented and repeatedly replicated, one of the first mass-produced pieces in the United States. In the 1870s Gordon W. Burnham requested that Ball make a larger-than-life-size version of the statue for Central Park. The immensity of the statue prevented it from being placed on the Mall as its donor intended, and it was subsequently installed along the West Drive at 72nd Street where it was dedicated in 1876. The sculpture was cast at the von Miller Foundry in Munich, Germany. Ferdinand von Miller II (1842-1929) also sculpted the statue of Dr. James Marion Sims (1813-1883) located near Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street. This monument was conserved in 1983, one of the first conservation efforts in Central Park's comprehensive program to restore its collection of statuary.

1927 - Victor Herbert statue in Central Park  This bronze portrait bust of Victor Herbert (1859-1924), an Irish-American cellist, composer, and conductor, is by sculptor Edmund Thomas Quinn (1868-1929), and was dedicated in 1927. This commemorative sculpture of Herbert was commissioned by ASCAP. Quinn, who trained with Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, was a well-known sculptor of his day who received numerous public and private commissions, and also sculpted the portrait bust of Edgar Allen Poe once situated outdoors in Poe Park, the Bronx, and now on view inside Poe Cottage. The sculpture of Herbert was unveiled by his daughter Ella on November 29, 1927 in a lavish ceremony presided over by Arthur S. Middleton, President of the Dramatists League. Among the numerous dignitaries attending were Mayor James J. Walker, Manhattan Parks Commissioner Walter H. Herrick, and composers Arthur Hammerstein and Irving Berlin. In 1936 the Herbert monument was refurbished, and in 1992 the Central Park Conservancy again conserved the statue. In 1995 the Victor Herbert Foundation established a sculpture maintenance endowment. Today, standing a stone's throw from some of Herbert's finest moments on the Central Park Concert Mall, the restored monument is a testament to a titan of American popular song.

1876 - Fitz Greene Halleck statue in Central Park  This bronze portrait sculpture depicts poet and essayist Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867). Sculpted by James Wilson Alexander MacDonald (1824-1908), the statue was dedicated in 1877, and is one of four sculptures in the vicinity that depict literary figures. The others are Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and William Shakespeare, all of which grace the southern end of Central Park's Mall, alternately known as Literary Walk. The statue was dedicated on May 15, 1877. The ceremony was attended by President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893), as well as his entire cabinet. The throng of spectators, estimated at 10,000, was so great on that day, and the damage to the surrounding turf so widespread, that park officials were said to have subsequently outlawed assemblies of such great size. Over the years the sculpture has been conserved on three occasions, in 1936, 1983, and 1999. Though time may have obscured the details of this expressive bronze portrait, and its subject's literary reputation has diminished, the statue remains a tangible reminder of an earlier era in the cultural landscape of New York.

1871 - Sir Walter Scott statue in Central Park  This larger-than-life-sized bronze portrait of Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) which was crafted by Sir John Steell (1804-1891) was dedicated on the "Literary Walk" in Central Park in 1872. Steell's effigy of Scott in Central Park eliminates the Gothic stone canopy - which critics have likened to "a spire without a cathedral" - of the original on Princes Street in Edinburgh. Scott is depicted seated on a rock, in a flowing cloak with workingman's shoes, book and pen in hand. Beside him sits his faithful hound. The completed statue was formally unveiled here on November 2, 1872, where it joined the sculpture of William Shakespeare, installed earlier that year. A legion of Highlanders from the 79th Regiment, the National Guard and the Caledonian Club were part of the festivities. Among the speakers was poet, editor, and civic leader William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), who commented, "and now as the statue of Scott is set up in this beautiful park, which a few years since, possessed no human associations, historical or poetic, connected with its shades, its lawns, its rocks and waters, these grounds become peopled with new memories." In 1936 Parks's monuments crew repaired the base and repatined the bronze. In 1993, both the pedestal and sculpture were again conserved through the Adopt-A-Monument Program, a joint venture of the Municipal Art Society, Parks, and the New York City Art Commission. The restoration was funded by the Saint Andrew's Society, which has also established a fund for ongoing care.

1892 - Christopher Columbus Statue in Central Park  For the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage in 1492, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society commissioned Spanish sculptor Jeronimo Sunol (1839-1902) to fashion this bronze portrait sculpture. The statue employs religious and imperialist imagery as the explorer holds in his right hand the Spanish flag with a cross on top. At his side, a globe is mounted to a cable-entwined capstan. The statue bears similarities to Sunol's Columbus monument installed in 1885 at the Plaza de Colon in Madrid. The statue rests on an elaborately carved granite pedestal with numerous undercuts, bevels and moldings designed by architect Napoleon Le Brun. It complements the monuments of Shakespeare, the Indian Hunter, and Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns installed earlier in the southern region of the Mall in Central Park. On May 12, 1894 the statue was unveiled during a ceremony presided over by the sculpture committee's chairman, General James Grant Wilson. The large crowd of spectators and participants included Vice President Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Mayor Thomas Francis Gilroy, Park Board President Abraham Tappen, Bishop Henry C. Potter, Italian Ambassador Baron de Fava, Spanish Minister Senor Don Muruaga, business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and author and social reformer Julia Ward Howe. Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, the orator for the occasion commented, "New York can add nothing to the glory of Columbus, but she may enforce the lesson of his life and discovery." The Central Park Conservancy last refurbished the statue in 1993.

1869 - Seventh Regiment Memorial in Central Park