Central Park

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Central Park is a public park at the center of Manhattan in New York City. The park initially opened in 1857, on 843 acres of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan. Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War, and was completed in 1873.

Central Park is one of the world's largest urban public parks, but somewhat smaller than several other great parks, as for example Paris' Bois de Vincennes (2,458 acres) and Bois de Boulogne (2,090 acres), London's Richmond Park (2,360 acres), Madrid's Casa de Campo (4,256 acres), and Los Angeles' Griffith Park (4,310 acres).