New York City
—  City  —
The City of New York
Clockwise from top: Midtown Manhattan, the United Nations Headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square, and the Unisphere in Queens
Flag Official seal of New York City Seal
Nickname(s): The Big Apple, Gotham, Center of the Universe, The City That Never Sleeps,[1] The Capital of the World[2][3][4][5]
Location in the state of New York
New York City Location in the United States
Coordinates: 40°39′51″N 73°56′19″W / 40.66417°N 73.93861°W / 40.66417; -73.93861Coordinates: 40°39′51″N 73°56′19″W / 40.66417°N 73.93861°W / 40.66417; -73.93861[6]
Country	United States
State	New York
Counties	Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond
Settled	1624
Incorporated	1898
Government[7]
• Type	Mayor–Council
• Body	New York City Council
• Mayor	Michael Bloomberg (I)
Area[6]
• City	468.48 sq mi (1,213.4 km2)
• Land	302.64 sq mi (783.8 km2)
• Water	165.84 sq mi (429.5 km2)
Elevation[8]	33 ft (10 m)
Population (2011 United States Census estimates[9])[10]
• City	8,244,910 (1st)
• Density	27,243.06/sq mi (10,518.60/km2)
• Metro	18,897,109 (1st)
• CSA	22,085,649 (1st)
Demonym	New Yorker
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code(s)	100xx–104xx, 11004–05, 111xx–114xx, 116xx
Area code(s)	212, 718, 917, 646, 347, 929
FIPS code	36-51000
GNIS feature ID	975772
Website	www.nyc.gov

New York is the most populous city in the United States^[11] and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world.^[12][13][14] The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York^[15] to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part.^[16] As a global power city,^[17] New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters,^[18] New York is an important center for international diplomacy^[19] and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.^[20]

Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors,^[21] New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county.^[22] The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898.^[23][24] With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910^[25] distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km²),^[26][27][28] New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States.^[29] As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.^[30] The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²),^[31][32] and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.^[33]

New York traces its roots to its 1624 founding as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic, and was named New Amsterdam in 1626.^[34] The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664^[35][36] and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York.^[37][38] New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790.^[39] It has been the country's largest city since 1790.^[40] The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries^[41] and is a globally recognized symbol of the United States and its democracy.^[42]

Many districts and landmarks in New York City have become well known to its approximately 50 million annual visitors.^[43][44][45] Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World",^{[46][47][48][49][50]} is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district,^[51] one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections,^[52][53] and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.^[54] The city hosts many world renowned bridges, skyscrapers,^[55] and parks. New York City's financial district, anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital of the world^[56] and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization of its listed companies.^[57] Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world.^[58] Manhattan's Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.^{[59][60][61][62]} Providing continuous 24/7 service,^[63] the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive rapid transit systems in the world. Numerous colleges and universities are located in New York,^[64] including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, which are ranked among the top 50 in the world.^[65]

History[link]

Early History[link]

In the precolonial era the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by various bands of Algonquian tribes of Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island, the western portion of Long Island including the area that would become Brooklyn and Queens, Manhattan and the lower Hudson Valley including The Bronx.^[66]

The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown, who sailed his ship La Dauphine into Upper New York Harbor, where he spent one night aboard ship and sailed out the next day. He claimed the area for France and named it "Nouvelle Angoulême" (New Angoulême).^[67] In January a year later, Esteban Gomez, a Portuguese of African descent sailing for Emperor Charles V of Spain, entered New York Harbor and charted the mouth of the Hudson river which he named Rio de San Antonio. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration.^[68]

The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolution, took place in Brooklyn in 1776.

In 1609 English explorer Henry Hudson re-discovered the region when he sailed his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) into New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for his employer the Dutch East India Company. He proceeded to sail up what he named the North River, also called the Mauritis River, and now known as the Hudson River, to the site of the present-day New York State capital of Albany in the belief that it may be a passage. When the river narrowed and was no longer salty he realized it wasn't a sea passage and sailed back downriver. He made a ten-day exploration of the area and claimed the region for his employer. In 1614 the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay would be claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland (New Netherland).

The year 1614 saw the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on the southern tip of Manhattan which would be called "Nieuw Amsterdam" (New Amsterdam) in 1625. Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small band of the Lenape,^[69] in 1626 for a value of 60 guilders^[70] (about $1000 in 2006);^[71] a disproved legend says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.^[72][73]

In 1664 Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, surrendered New Amsterdam to the English without bloodshed. The English promptly renamed the fledgling city "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany.^[74] At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch gained control of Run (then a much more valuable asset) in exchange for the English controlling New Amsterdam (New York) in North America. Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and some epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizable population losses for the Lenape between the years 1660 and 1670.^[75] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.^[76]

In 1702, the city lost 10% of its population to yellow fever.^[77] New York suffered seven major yellow fever epidemics from 1702 to 1800.^[78]

New Amsterdam in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it "New York"

New York grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule. It became a center of slavery, with 42% of households holding slaves by 1730, more than any other city other than Charleston, South Carolina. Most slaveholders held a few or several domestic slaves, but others hired them out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banks and shipping tied to the South. Discovery of the African Burying Ground in the 1990s during construction of a new federal courthouse near Foley Square revealed than tens of thousands of Africans had been buried in the area in the colonial years.

The city hosted the influential John Peter Zenger trial in 1735, helping to establish the freedom of the press in North America. In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by George II of Great Britain as King's College in Lower Manhattan.^[79] The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765 as the Sons of Liberty organized in the city, skirmishing over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.

The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 entirely within the modern day borough of Brooklyn. After the battle, in which the Americans were routed, leaving subsequent smaller engagements following in its wake, the city became the British military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees, as well as escaped slaves who joined the British lines for the freedom promised by the Crown. As many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation. When the British forces evacuated in 1783, they transported 3,000 freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia. They resettled other freedmen in England and the Caribbean.

The only attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates including Benjamin Franklin, and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after the British occupation began the Great Fire of New York occurred, a large conflagration which destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in the city, including Trinity Church.^[80]

In 1785 the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York the national capital shortly after the war. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States. In 1789 the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time, and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street.^[81] By 1790, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.