New York, often called New York City to distinguish it from New York State, or NYC for short, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the State of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area. With over 20 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23,582,649 in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world’s most populous megacities. New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports, and is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and has sometimes been called the capital of the world.
Situated on one of the world’s largest natural harbors, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county of the State of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens (Queens County), Manhattan (New York County), the Bronx (Bronx County), and Staten Island (Richmond County)—were created when local governments were consolidated into a single municipal entity in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $2.0 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. The city was regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange for one year and three months; the city has been continuously named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and has been the largest U.S. city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity, entrepreneurship, and environmental sustainability, and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity.
Many districts and monuments in New York City are major landmarks, including three of the world’s ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013. A record 66.6 million tourists visited New York City in 2019. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Many of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world, as is the city’s fast pace, spawning the term New York minute. The Empire State Building has become the global standard of reference to describe the height and length of other structures. Manhattan’s real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. Providing continuous 24/7 service and contributing to the nickname The City That Never Sleeps, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, and the City University of New York system, which is the largest urban public university system in the United States. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world’s leading financial center and the most financially powerful city in the world, and is home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. (Wikipedia)
Rows of cars line the curb as a result of free parking over Labor Day weekend in New York City, Sept. 6, 1942A crowd of customers gather at Sloppy Joe’s soft drink stand during a dimout in Times Square, New York, May 21, 1942An Italian spaghetti house and a German health food store next to each other on 86th St. in New York, Jan. 22, 1942Customers gather at soft drink stand during a dimout in Times Square, New York, May 21, 1942The bright lights of Times Square during the New Year’s Eve celebration, Dec. 31, 1942Times Square dimout, New York, March 1, 1942Times Square looking north from the New York Times newspaper building at 42nd St., during a dim-out in midtown Manhattan, May 20, 1942Workmen prepare to lower one of the 100-pound metal cornices from the Hotel Ansonia in New York, Sept. 22, 1942A boy swings and misses at a ball during a practice session in Brooklyn, N.Y., June 9, 1943After 18 months in the dark, theater marquees on Broadway light up again while underneath the crowds come out of the dimout gloom in New York, Nov. 2, 1943Two Army soldiers assist a man who was involved in a scuffle that occurred during the outbreak of a race riot in the Harlem area, Aug. 2, 1943Ice skaters in New York’s Central Park look from the top of the Savoy Plaza Hotel at 59th St. and Fifth Ave., Jan. 9, 1944Pedestrians strolling Broadway stop to peek into one of the many photo studios looking for diversion in New York, Dec. 1, 1944A huge crowd in New York’s Times Square jubilantly welcome the news that the Japanese had accepted the allies terms of surrender on Aug. 14, 1945People observing the death of President Roosevelt, the United Nations flags fly at half mast at Rockefeller Plaza, New York, April 13, 1945People sunbathe on the beach and walk along the boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn, May 27, 1945A Christmas Eve shopper with a crated rocking horse tries to hail a cab outside Macy’s department store in New York City on Dec. 24, 1946A pushcart vendor cleans fresh fish before weighing it for a customer in New York’s Lower East Side, June 1, 1946Enticing delicacies on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, in New York, June 1, 1946Men stop to look at fabric for sale at an outdoor table in front of a store in New York’s Lower East Side on June 1, 1946Soldiers stand rigidly at attention in their vehicles which carry 8-inch Howitzers, during the Victory Parade of the 82nd Airborne Division on Fifth Avenue in New York, Jan. 12, 1946The Third Avenue el winds its way through lower Manhattan, February 12, 1946A longshoreman listens to his radio as he sits on the terrace wall in front of the New York Public Library on the corner of 42nd Street in New York January 29, 1947A man stares at the prices scribbled on the window of Bowery restaurant on New York’s Lower East Side, Sept. 26, 1947A pedestrian stops and enjoys a hot ear of corn from the vendor in New York, July 14, 1947A pedestrian walks between drifts of snow in Times Square, Dec. 27, 1947A row of red-brick mansions peek through Washington Square Park’s Washington Arch in New York City’s Greenwich Village on February 25, 1947An elderly street merchant wheels his push cart loaded with crockery slowly along at the corner of Orchard and Delancy Streets on the Lower East Side of New York, July 14, 1947Passengers scurry to buses at 49th Street and Fifth Ave., as snow continues to fall reaching a depth of 10.5 inches, Dec. 26, 1947Pedestrians make their way in between cars stalled on the bridge while crossing the Grand Central Parkway at Union Turnpike, Kew Gardens, Queens, Dec. 27, 1947Smoke from a massive fire pours out of Pier 57 on the Hudson River at 15th Street in New York, Sept. 29, 1947The Bowery where it intersects with Canal Street in New York, 1947The Empire State Building is seen at right in this aerial view of buildings in Manhattan’s Garment District on Seventh Avenue on Dec. 9, 1947The Fulton Fish Market from corner of Fulton St. looking north, New York City, Jan. 6, 1947A huge balloon in the form of comic fireman floats over Broadway during the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, Nov. 25, 1948A man takes a nap on the ground in New York, July 17, 1948A pretzel vendor displays his wares on an approach to the Manhattan Bridge in New York City, April 29, 1948A young boy makes a chalk drawing on the sidewalk in front of a tenement house on 36th Street, NYC, May 12, 1948Early morning in the Fulton Fish Market, New York City’s wholesale fish center, on Sept. 5, 1948Police and pickets scuffle at the entrance of the New York Stock Exchange at 11 Wall Street in New York, March 30, 1948The bridge crossing over the East 34th Street station, looks north over the Third Avenue Line El train, New York City, 1948The crowded beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn, Aug. 28, 1948Two workmen eat their lunch beside their excavation on fashionable Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets in New York, June 8, 1948People crowd into Times Square, in New York, Dec. 31, 1949, to welcome in the New YearSkaters glide on the ice at the center’s skating rink in midtown Manhattan, New York, Dec. 8, 1949Snow-covered trees in Central Park are seen against the Essex House building on Central Park South, NYC, March 1, 1949West Broadway looking north from Vesey Street in New York City on July 21, 1949Yellow cabs line New York’s Fifth Avenue, Jan. 15, 19495th Avenue New YorkSocial PatronLongchamps Restaurant, 42nd and Lexington Ave. New YorkA lightning bolt strikes above Lower Manhattan on July 27, 1940Newspaper Hat, 1946Police Car, New York, 1942Lunch Break, New York, 1947Brooklyn boys, 1946
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