Orientation

The parish of Kingston encompasses what is today referred to as Downtown, as well as the Palisadoes, a 16-kilometer-long, thin strip of land that runs from the roundabout at Harbour View to the tip of Port Royal.

Originally laid out in a grid bound by Harbour, North, East, and West Streets, the old city of Kingston soon overstepped these boundaries with ramshackle residential neighborhoods springing up on every side. Over the years, some of these areas have seen simple zinc shacks replaced by homes of slightly better stature. Most of the buildings in the area below the central square, or Parade, as it is known, are commercial, with limited middle-income housing in high-rise buildings near the waterfront.

Most of the more bustling areas of Town are actually located in St. Andrew parish. The two most developed areas are the hubs of New Kingston, immediately north of Cross Roads, and Half Way Tree, immediately to the east of New Kingston. Hope Road, where several businesses and sites of interest are located, runs northeast from Half Way Tree Square all the way to Papine on the northern edge of town. From there, Highway B1, which is little more than a narrow, winding road that often becomes impassable on the descent due to landslides, leads into and over the Blue Mountains. Half Way Tree Road is also a major thoroughfare; it starts at Cross Roads, turning into Constant Spring Road north of the Clock Tower in Half Way Tree, and runs to the northernmost edge of town, where it becomes Stony Hill Road, and later turns into Highway A3, leading to St. Mary parish and the North Coast via Junction.

Metropolitan Kingston is often referred to as the Corporate Area and is divided into two regions referred to by Kingstonians as Uptown and Downtown. In a spatial sense, Downtown Kingston is the old city, laid out in a well-organized grid, whereas Uptown encompasses an urban and suburban sprawl with little order, the result of more recent economic development. The junction at Cross Roads forms a dividing line between Downtown and Uptown.

The Blue Mountain foothills flank the entire city, forming a constant backdrop. Along with a handful of high-rises in New Kingston, the hills provide the best natural landmarks for spatial orientation when moving about the city. Kingston's most affluent residential neighborhoods hug the hills from Long Hill in the southeast at the foot of the Dallas Mountains, wrapping around to Beverly Hills, Mona, Hope Pastures, Barbican, Jack's Hill, Graham Heights, Norbrook, Stony Hill, and Red Hills, from east to west.