Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south and the Hudson River and West Street to the west, with the northern boundary variously described as 30th Street or 34th Street, and the eastern boundary as either 6th avenue and 5th Avenue to the north of Chelsea is the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, as well as the Hudson Yards; to the northeast is the Garment District; to the east are NoMad and the Flatiron District; to the southwest is the Meatpacking District; and to the south and southeast are the West Village and the remainder of Greenwich Village.^[8]

Chelsea is divided between Manhattan Community Board 4 and Manhattan Community Board 5. It contains the Chelsea Historic District and its extension, which were designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1970 and 1981 respectively.

The neighborhood is primarily residential, with a mix of tenements, apartment blocks, city housing projects, townhouses, and renovated rowhouses, but its many retail businesses reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the population. Chelsea is also known as one of the centers of the city's art world, with over 200 galleries in the neighborhood. However, as of 2015, due to the area's gentrification, there is a widening income gap between the wealthy living in luxury buildings and the poor living in housing projects, who are, at times, across the street from each other.