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| Name | New York City |
|---|---|
| Official name | City of New York |
| Native name | |
| Nickname | The Big Apple, Gotham, Center of The Universe, The City That Never Sleeps |
| Settlement type | City |
| Imagesize | 300px |
| Image seal | Seal of the City of New York.svg |
| Map caption | Location in the state of New York |
| Pushpin map | USA2 |
| Pushpin map caption | Location in the United States |
| Main lenguages | English and Spanish |
| Coordinates display | inline,title |
| Coordinates region | US-NY |
| Subdivision type | Country |
| Subdivision name | United States |
| Subdivision type1 | State |
| Subdivision name1 | New York |
| Subdivision type2 | Counties |
| Subdivision name2 | Bronx Kings New York Queens Richmond |
| Government type | Mayor-Council |
| Leader title | Mayor |
| Leader name | Michael Bloomberg (I) |
| Leader title1 | |
| Established title | Settled |
| Established date | 1624 |
| Established title2 | |
| Established title3 | |
| Established date3 | 1898 |
| Area magnitude | 1 E9 |
| Unit pref | Imperial |
| Area total km2 | 1214.4 |
| Area land km2 | 789.4 |
| Area water km2 | 428.8 |
| Area total sq mi | 468.9 |
| Area land sq mi | 304.8 |
| Area water sq mi | 165.6 |
| Area urban km2 | 8683.2 |
| Area urban sq mi | 3352.6 |
| Area metro km2 | 17405 |
| Area metro sq mi | 6720 |
| Population as of | July 1, 2009 |
| Fullwidth | 22,495 |
| Fullheight | 1,651 |
| Caption | A panorama of New York City taken from Hoboken, NJ. Beginning at the George Washington Bridge on the far left to Midtown Manhattan in the middle and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the far right. |
| Alt | daytime skyline of a city, with a large body of water in front |
| Height | 200 |
Manhattan's skyline with its many skyscrapers is universally recognized, and the city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world. As of August 2008, New York City has 5,538 highrise buildings, with 50 completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). This is more than any other city in United States, and second in the world, behind Hong Kong.
New York has architecturally noteworthy buildings in a wide range of styles. These include the Woolworth Building (1913), an early gothic revival skyscraper built with massively scaled gothic detailing. The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below.
The Art Deco style of the Chrysler Building (1930), with its tapered top and steel spire, reflected the zoning requirements. The building has distinctive ornamentation such as replicas at the corners of the 61st floor of the 1928 Chrysler eagle hood ornaments.
A highly influential example of the international style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its facade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is an prominent example of green design in American skyscrapers. Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835.
A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the wooden roof-mounted water towers. In the 1800s, the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could break municipal water pipes.
Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, including Jackson Heights in Queens.
New York City has over of municipal parkland and of public beaches. This parkland complements tens of thousands of acres of federal and state parkland.
The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum are managed by the National Park Service, and are joined in the harbor by Governors Island National Monument. Historic sites under federal management on Manhattan Island include Castle Clinton National Monument; Federal Hall National Memorial; Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; General Grant National Memorial ("Grant's Tomb"); African Burial Ground National Monument; and Hamilton Grange National Memorial.
* Prospect Park in Brooklyn, has a meadow, a lake and extensive woodlands. Located within the park is the historic Battle Pass which fiqured prominently in the Battle of Long Island.
* Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest park, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and the 1964 World's Fair.
* Over a fifth of the Bronx's area, is given over to open space and parks, including Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens.
* In Staten Island the Conference House Park contains the historic Conference House site of the only attempt of a peaceful resolution to the American Revolution attended by Benjamin Franklin representing the Americans and Lord Howe representing the British Crown. Located within the park is the historic Burial Ridge the largest Native American burial ground within New York City.
New York City is composed of five boroughs. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State as shown below. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, many with a definable history and character to call their own. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States.
*Manhattan (New York County; 2009 Est. Pop.: 1,629,054) Except for a small section of Manhattan known as Marble Hill, the Bronx is the only section of the city that is part of the United States mainland. It is home to the Bronx Zoo, the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States, which spans and is home to over 6,000 animals. The Bronx is the birthplace of rap and hip hop culture.
*Queens (Queens County: Pop. 2,306,712) and may overtake Brooklyn as the city's most populous borough due to its growth. Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, today the borough is predominantly residential and middle class. Queens County is the only large county in the United States where the median income among African Americans, approximately $52,000 a year, is higher than that of White Americans. Queens is the site of Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, and annually hosts the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Additionally, it is home to two of the three major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport. (The third is Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey.)
*Staten Island (Richmond County: Pop. 491,730) Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks.
Numerous major American cultural movements began in the city, such as the Harlem Renaissance, which established the African-American literary canon in the United States.
The city was a center of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. The city's punk and hardcore scenes were influential in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature.
Prominent indie rock bands coming out of New York in recent years include The Strokes, Interpol, The Bravery, Scissor Sisters, and They Might Be Giants.
The city prominently excels in its spheres of art, cuisine, dance, music, opera, theater, independent film, fashion, museums, and literature. The city is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art; abstract expressionism (also known as the New York School) in painting; and hip hop, punk, salsa, disco, freestyle, and Tin Pan Alley in music. New York City is also widely celebrated in popular lore, featured frequently as the setting for books, movies (see New York in film), and television programs.
Today, New York City is the second largest center for the film industry in the United States. The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes.
The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts. This area is sometimes referred to as The Main Stem, The Great White Way or The Realto.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is home to 12 influential arts organizations, includingJazz at Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic. New York City Ballet, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the Juilliard School and Alice Tully Hall. It is the largest performing arts center in the United States.
Central Park SummerStage presents performances of free plays and music in Central Park and 1,200 free concerts, dance, and theater events across all five boroughs in the summer months.
has the highest annual attendance rate of any tourist attraction in the USA.]]
Tourism is one of New York City's most vital industries, with more than 40 million combined domestic and international tourists visiting each year in the past five years. Major destinations include the Empire State Building; Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island; Broadway theater productions; museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; greenspaces such as Central Park and Washington Square Park; Rockefeller Center; Times Square; luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues; and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the St. Patrick's Day parade, seasonal activities such as ice skating in Central Park in the wintertime, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. Special experiences outside the key tourist areas of the city include, but are not limited to the Bronx Zoo; Coney Island; and the New York Botanical Garden.
In 2010, New York City had a record number of tourists with 48.7 million. Since the United States economy is still recovering, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's goal is to break the record again in 2012 by drawing more than 50 million tourists.
New York is a center for the television, advertising, music, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in North America (followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto).
Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York. Three of the "Big Four" record labels' headquarters, are in New York City; Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. One-third of all American independent films are produced in New York.
More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city
Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times which has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.
Major tabloid newspapers in the city include: The New York Daily News and The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.
The city also has a major ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages. El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation. The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper. The Village Voice is the largest alternative newspaper
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy.
The four major American broadcast networks are all headquartered in New York: ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central.
In 2005, there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.
New York is also a major center for non-commercial media. The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971. WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary source of national PBS programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.
The City of New York operates a public broadcast service, NYCTV, that has produced several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government.
Eastern European and Italian immigrants have made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake, and New York-style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and kebabs standbys of modern New York street food, although hot dogs and pretzels are still the main street fare.
The city is also home to many of the finest and most diverse haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.
There have been thirty-five Major League Baseball World Series won by New York teams. It is one of only five metro areas (Chicago, Washington-Baltimore, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area being the others) to have two baseball teams. The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, who compete in six games every regular season called the Subway Series. The Yankees have won a record 27 championships, while the Mets have won the World Series twice. The city also was once home to the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers). Both teams moved to California in 1958. There are also two minor league baseball teams in the city, the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones.
The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Jets and New York Giants (officially the New York Football Giants), although both teams play their home games at New Meadowlands Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey. The stadium will host Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.
is the largest marathon in the world. Rucker Park in Harlem is a celebrated court where many professional athletes play in the summer league.
(held in Queens) is the fourth and final event of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments.]]
In soccer, New York is represented by the Major League Soccer side, Red Bull New York. The "Red Bulls" play their home games at Red Bull Arena in nearby Harrison, New Jersey.
Queens is host of the U.S. Tennis Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The New York Marathon is one of the world's largest, and the 2004–2006 events hold the top three places in the marathons with the largest number of finishers, including 37,866 finishers in 2006. The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is also a prominent part of the city's sporting scene, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Garden each year.
Many sports are associated with New York's immigrant communities. Stickball, a street version of baseball, was popularized by youths in working class Italian, German, and Irish neighborhoods in the 1930s. A street in The Bronx has been renamed Stickball Blvd, as tribute to New York's most known street sport.
The city's rugby league team, the New York Knights, plays in the AMNRL. They won the 2009 AMNRL Championship Final against the Jacksonville Axemen 32-12.
New York is a global hub of international business and commerce and is one of three "command centers" for the world economy (along with London and Tokyo). The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the United States. on Wall Street, the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume]]
The New York metropolitan area had approximately gross metropolitan product of $1.13 trillion in 2005, making it the largest regional economy in the United States and, according to IT Week, the second largest city economy in the world. According to Cinco Dias, New York controlled 40% of the world's finances by the end of 2008, making it the largest financial center in the world.
Many major corporations are headquartered in New York City, including 42 Fortune 500 companies. New York is also unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. One out of ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company.
Manhattan had 353.7 million square feet (32,860,000 m²) of office space in 2001.
Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States. Lower Manhattan is the third largest central business district in the United States, and is home to The New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, representing the world's first and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured by average daily trading volume and overall market capitalization. Financial services account for more than 35% of the city's employment income.
Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was $802.4 billion in 2006. The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.
The city's television and film industry is the second largest in the country after Hollywood. Creative industries such as new media, advertising, fashion, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment, with New York City possessing a strong competitive advantage in these industries.
High-tech industries like biotechnology, software development, game design, and internet services are also growing, bolstered by the city's position at the terminus of several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines. Other important sectors include medical research and technology, non-profit institutions, and universities.
Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products. The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city. Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents. Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year. 1790–1890, 1900–1990, 2000 Census and *2009 estimate. This amounts to about 40% of the state of New York's population and a similar percentage of the metropolitan regional population. Over the last decade the city has been growing rapidly and demographers estimate New York's population will reach between 9.2 and 9.5 million by 2030. women, (Oklahoma, 1910) descendants of the original inhabitants of New York region.]] Two demographic points are the city's density and ethnic diversity. In 2000, the city had an extremely high population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194/km²), about 10,000 more people per square mile than the next densest American city, San Francisco. As synonymous with New York County, Manhattan's population density is 66,940 people per square mile (25,846/km²), highest of any county in the United States.
New York City is exceptionally diverse. Throughout its history the city has been a major point of entry for immigrants; more than 12 million European immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. By 1900, New York City had more Italians than any city in Italy except Rome, more Poles than any city in Poland except Warsaw, as many Irish as Dublin, and more Jews than any other city in the world. The term "melting pot" was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side.
Approximately 36% of the city's population is foreign-born. Among American cities, this proportion is higher only in Los Angeles and Miami. The New York region continues to be the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States. ]] The New York City metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and the city proper contains the largest Jewish community in the world. It is also home to nearly a quarter of the nation's South Asians, the largest African American community of any city in the country, and comprised as of 2008 a population of 659,596 ethnic Chinese, the largest outside of Asia. There is also a substantial Puerto Rican and Dominican population. Another historically significant ethnic group are Italians, who emigrated to the city in large numbers in the early twentieth century, mainly from Sicily and Southern Italy. The Irish also have a notable presence; one in 50 New Yorkers of European origin carry a distinctive genetic signature on their Y chromosomes inherited from the clan of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the fifth century A.D. or from one of the related clans of Uí Briúin and Uí Fiachrach.
New York City has a high degree of income disparity. In 2005 the median household income in the wealthiest census tract was $188,697, while in the poorest it was $9,320. The disparity is driven by wage growth in high income brackets, while wages have stagnated for middle and lower income brackets. In 2006 the average weekly wage in Manhattan was $1,453, the highest and fastest growing among the largest counties in the United States. The borough is also experiencing a baby boom that is unique among American cities. Since 2000, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more than 32%.
Since its consolidation in 1898, New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a "strong" mayor-council form of government. The government of New York is more centralized than that of most other U.S. cities. In New York City, the central government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply and welfare services. The mayor and councillors are elected to four-year terms. The New York City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 Council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries. The mayor and councilors are limited to three consecutive four-year terms but can run again after a four year break.
The present mayor is Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat, former Republican (2001–2008) and current political independent elected on the Republican and Independence Party tickets against opponents supported by the Democratic and Working Families Parties in 2001 (50.3% of the vote to 47.9%), 2005 (58.4% to 39%) and 2009 (50.6% to 46%). He is known for taking control of the city's education system from the state, rezoning and economic development, sound fiscal management, and aggressive public health policy. In his second term he has made school reform, poverty reduction, and strict gun control central priorities of his administration. Together with Boston mayor Thomas Menino, in 2006 he founded the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, an organization with the goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of November 2008, 67% of registered voters in the city are Democrats. New York City has not been carried by a Republican in a statewide or presidential election since 1924. Party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development, and labor politics are of importance in the city. is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions.]]
New York is the most important source of political fundraising in the United States, as four of the top five ZIP codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The top zip code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry. The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). The city also sends an additional $11 billion more each year to the state of New York than it receives back.
Each borough is coextensive with a judicial district of the New York Supreme Court and hosts other state and city courts. Manhattan also hosts the Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department, while Brooklyn hosts the Appellate Division, Second Department. Federal courts located near City Hall include the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Court of International Trade. Brooklyn hosts the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Sociologists and criminologists have not reached consensus on what explains the dramatic decrease in the city's crime rate. Some attribute the phenomenon to new tactics used by the New York City Police Department, including its use of CompStat and the broken windows theory. Others cite the end of the crack epidemic and demographic changes.
Organized crime has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards in the Five Points in the 1820s. The 20th century saw a rise in the Mafia dominated by the Five Families and they still are the largest and most powerful criminal organization in the city. Gangs including the Black Spades also grew in the late 20th century. As early as 1850, New York City recorded more than 200 gang wars fought largely by youth gangs. The most prominent gangs in New York City today are the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, and MS-13.
New York City is home to such notable private universities as Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, The New School, Pace University, and Yeshiva University. The public City University of New York system is one of the largest universities in the nation, and includes a number of undergraduate colleges and associate degree community colleges, with options in each borough. The city has dozens of other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as St. John's University, The Juilliard School, The College of Mount Saint Vincent, and The School of Visual Arts. 's Keating Hall in The Bronx]] Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. New York City has the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, 40,000 licensed physicians, and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions. The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities. Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.
The New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country, serves Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Queens is served by the Queens Borough Public Library, which is the nation's second largest public library system, and Brooklyn Public Library serves Brooklyn. The iconic New York City Subway system is the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, while Grand Central Terminal, also popularly referred to as "Grand Central Station", is the world's largest railway station by number of platforms. New York's airspace is one of the world's busiest air transportation corridors. The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.
Public transit is New York City's most popular mode of transit. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using mass transit. This is in contrast to the rest of the United States, where about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace. According to the US Census Bureau, New York City residents spend an average of 38.4 minutes a day getting to work, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities. is the world's largest mass transit system by number of stations.]] New York City is served by Amtrak, which uses Pennsylvania Station. Amtrak provides connections to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. along the Northeast Corridor and long-distance train service to cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, Miami, Toronto and Montreal. The Port Authority Bus Terminal, the main intercity bus terminal of the city, serves 7,000 buses and 200,000 commuters daily, making it the busiest bus station in the world.
The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by stations in operation, with 468. It is the third-largest when measured by annual ridership (1.5 billion passenger trips in 2006). the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel, more than 12,000 yellow cabs, an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, and a ferry system connecting Manhattan to various locales within and outside the city. The busiest ferry in the United States is the Staten Island Ferry, which annually carries over 19 million passengers on the run between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan. The Staten Island Railway rapid transit system solely serves Staten Island. The "PATH" train (short for Port Authority Trans-Hudson) links Midtown and Lower Manhattan to northeastern New Jersey, primarily Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark. Like the New York City Subway, the PATH operates 24 hours a day; meaning two of the four rapid transit systems in the world which operate on 24-hour schedules are wholly or partly in New York (the others are a portion of the Chicago "L" and the PATCO Speedline serving Philadelphia).
New York City's public bus fleet and commuter rail network are the largest in North America.
Flight Center Building at John F. Kennedy International Airport]] New York City is the top international air passenger gateway to the United States. The area is served by three major airports, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia, with plans for a fourth airport, Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, New York, to be taken over and enlarged by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (which administers the other three airports), as a "reliever" airport to help cope with increasing passenger volume. 100 million travelers used the three airports in 2005 and the city's airspace is the busiest in the nation. Outbound international travel from JFK and Newark accounted for about a quarter of all U.S. travelers who went overseas in 2004. JFK Airport is the largest hub for JetBlue. It is the fourth largest hub for American Airlines and is the sixth largest hub for Delta Air Lines. Newark Airport will be the third largest hub for United Airlines once they complete their merger with Continental Airlines. This will make United Airlines the largest airline in the New York market.
New York's high rate of public transit use, 120,000 daily cyclists and many pedestrian commuters makes it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.
To complement New York's vast mass transit network, the city also has an extensive web of expressways and parkways, that link New York City to northern New Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island, and southwest Connecticut through various bridges and tunnels. Because these highways serve millions of suburban residents who commute into New York, it is quite common for motorists to be stranded for hours in traffic jams that are a daily occurrence, particularly during rush hour. The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest bridge in terms of vehicle traffic.
Despite New York's reliance on public transit, roads are a defining feature of the city. Manhattan's street grid plan greatly influenced the city's physical development. Several of the city's streets and avenues, like Broadway, Wall Street and Madison Avenue are also used as metonyms for national industries located there: the theater, finance, and advertising organizations, respectively.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; background:white; width:70%;" |- style="color:white;" ! ! style="background:#659ec7; width: 4%"| Arms ! ! style="background:#659ec7; width:10%;"| City ! ! style="background:#659ec7; width:24%;"| Geographical location ! ! style="background:#659ec7; width:22%;"| Nation ! ! style="background:#659ec7; width: 5%;"| Since |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Tokyo |! ! align=left| Kantō region (Honshū island) |! ! align=left| |! !| 1960 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Beijing |! ! align=left| North China |! ! align=left| |! !| 1980 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Cairo |! ! align=left| Cairo Governorate |! ! align=left| |! !| 1982 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Madrid |! ! align=left| Community of Madrid |! ! align=left| |! !| 1982 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Santo Domingo |! ! align=left| National District |! ! align=left| |! !|1983 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Budapest |! ! align=left| Central Hungary |! ! align=left| |! !| 1992 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Rome |! ! align=left| Lazio (Latium) |! ! align=left| |! !| 1992 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Jerusalem |! ! align=left| Jerusalem District |! ! align=left| |! !| 1993 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| London |! ! align=left| |! ! align=left| |! !| 2001 |- |! !| |! ! style="background:lemonchiffon;"| Johannesburg |! ! align=left| Gauteng Province |! ! align=left| |! !| 2003 |}
Like New York, all except Beijing are the most populous cities of their respective nations, but unlike New York, all but Johannesburg also serve as de facto or de jure national political capitals. New York and her sister cities are all major economic centers, but few of the sister cities share New York's status as a major seaport.
Category:Cities in New York Category:Former capitals of the United States Category:Former national capitals Category:Former United States state capitals Category:Government of New York City Category:Metropolitan areas of the United States Category:Populated places established in 1624 Category:Populated places on the Hudson River Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:1624 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies
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