What's Welikia?

Welikia (pronounced “way-LEE-kee-uh” ) refers to the land that would eventually become New York City: a highly productive, highly biodiverse natural landscape of hills, valleys, forests, fields, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, beaches, springs, ponds and streams. Welikia supported a rich and abundant community of wildlife, including Indigenous peoples, for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. At its center was Mannahatta, the island that became Manhattan.

Welikia was home to trees, flowers, mosses, lichens, songbirds, salamanders, bears, wolves, with clear, clean waters jumping with fish, porpoises and whales in the harbor. Welikia's biodiversity per acre rivaled that of modern national parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Great Smoky Mountains.

The word welikia is borrowed from Lenape, the Indigenous language of this region: it means “my good home.”

It was indeed a good home for all of us.