The Diamond District is a dense commercial stretch along West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, officially known as Diamond and Jewelry Way, containing some 2,600 businesses dealing in diamonds, gems, and jewelry. The district took shape in the mid-20th century when Orthodox Jewish diamond merchants fled Nazi-occupied Europe, settling in New York and consolidating a trade that now accounts for an estimated 90 percent of diamonds entering the United States and generates roughly $24 billion in annual sales.