The Incorporated Village of Hempstead is located in the Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 53,891 at the 2010 census,, but by 2017 had reached 55,806 according to the U.S. Census Bureau estimate. It is the most densely populated village in New York. Hempstead Village is the site of the seventeenth-century "town spot" from which English and Dutch settlers developed the Town of Hempstead, the Town of North Hempstead, and ultimately Nassau County.
Several of Nassau County's most historically valuable buildings are in the Village of Hempstead, including Town of Hempstead Town Hall (built in 1918), Carman-Irish Hall at 160 Marvin Avenue (built about 1700), St. George's Episcopal Church (319 Front Street, erected 1822), St. George's Rectory (217 Peninsula Boulevard, built 1793), and the United Methodist Church at 40 Washington Street (erected 1855). The Carman-Irish Hall is occupied by American Legion Post 390. The church structures have been in continuous use by their congregations since they were built.
Christ's First Presbyterian Church at 353 Fulton Avenue is Nassau County's oldest Presbyterian congregation, and one of the earliest in the United States, having been founded in 1644 by Richard Denton.
Jackson Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, housed at 60 Peninsula Boulevard since the mid-1950s, was established between 1825 and 1840. It is one of the county's oldest African American congregations.
Diversity has long been a characteristic of Hempstead. While it was majority white until the mid-twentieth century, Hempstead had a significant black population from about 1651 onward, in addition to the native peoples still living on Long Island. Starting in the nineteenth century, Hempstead's diversity increased. Irish, Polish, and German immigrants arrived during the second half of the nineteenth century to join the descendants of the original English and Dutch settlers. Military personnel were trained at Camp Mills during 1918 and at Mitchel Field during World War II, and some stayed to raise families, adding other European-descent groups and African Americans. During the first half of the twentieth century, African Americans from the South who sought opportunities in the North established homes and businesses in Hempstead. Nassau County's first chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in Hempstead in 1932. A major case against de facto segregation in Hempstead was taken to the New York State Supreme Court in 1949 by Thurgood Marshall. From the 1950s forward, the village's African American population has increased, and so have Mexican, Central American, and South American groups, as well as Caribbean immigrants, Middle Easterners, and Asians, especially Indians and South Asians.
Hofstra University (founded 1934) is located in Hempstead.