New York City

New York
City
Midtown Manhattan with the Empire State Building (center) and Lower Manhattan with One WTC (background) UN headquarters Statue of Liberty Times Square Unisphere Central Park Brooklyn Bridge Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge Bronx Zoo
1st)
Time zone	UTC−05:00 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00 (EDT)
ZIP Codes	100xx–104xx, 11004–05, 111xx–114xx, 116xx
Area codes	212/646/332, 718/347/929, 917
FIPS code	36-51000
GNIS feature ID	975772
Website	www.nyc.gov

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v t e

New York, often called New York City

With an estimated population in 2023 of 8,258,035[5] distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km²),^[4] the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city.^[19] With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area^[20] and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities.^[21] The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City,^[22] making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the United States,^[19] the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.^[23]

New York City traces

In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York (later King James II of England).^[37] James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed him proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when the Kingdom of England seized it from Dutch control.^[38]

In the

The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano.^[40] He claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême).^[41] A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio ('Saint Anthony's River').^[42]

In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company.^[43] He sailed up what the Dutch called North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange.^[44]

Hudson claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between

The Castello Plan, a 1660 map of New Amsterdam in Lower Manhattan

New Amsterdam, centered in what eventually became Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it New York

A permanent European presence near

The colony of New Amsterdam extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street, where a 12-foot (3.7 m) wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and English raids.^[49] In 1626, the Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit, as charged by the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small Lenape band,^[50] for "the value of 60 guilders"^[51] (about $900 in 2018).^[52] A frequently told but disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.^[53][54]

Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly.^[24] To attract settlers, the Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen (patroons, or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded land, local political autonomy, and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.^[55]

Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General. In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth, the Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies).^[24][56]

In 1647,

The Fall of New Amsterdam, painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, depicting the Conquest of New Netherland

Fort George and New York with British warships, c. 1731

In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed.^[59][60] The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.^[61]

In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the victorious Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname, which they had gained from the English,^[62] and in return the English kept New Amsterdam. The settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII).^[63] The duke gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley.^[64]

On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Anthony Colve of the Dutch navy seized New York at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III, the Prince of Orange.^[65] The Dutch soon returned the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674.^[66][67]

Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between 1660 and 1670.^[68] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.^[69] New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population in 1702 alone.^[70][71]

In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a

The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger, who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby, helped to establish freedom of the press in North America.^[75] In 1754, Columbia University was founded.^[76]

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.^[77] The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 within modern-day Brooklyn.^[78] A British rout of the Continental Army at the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776 eliminated the last American stronghold in Manhattan, causing George Washington and his forces to retreat across the Hudson River to New Jersey, pursued by British forces.^[79][80]

After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America.

In January 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital.^[88] New York was the last capital of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and the first under the Constitution.^[89] As the capital, New York City hosted the inauguration of the first President, George Washington, and the first Congress, at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Congress drafted the Bill of Rights there.^[89] The Supreme Court held its first organizational sessions in New York in 1790.

In 1790, for the first time, New York City surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of 1790, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.^[90][91]

During the 19th century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million.^[92] Under New York State's gradual emancipation act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties.^[93][94] Together with slaves freed by their masters after the Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. The New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children.^[95] It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state.^[96] Free Blacks struggled with discrimination and interracial abolitionist activism continued. New York City's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 (10,886 of whom were Black and of which 518 were enslaved) to 312,710 by 1840 (16,358 of whom were Black).^[97]

Also in the 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration, respectively.^[99] The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.^[100] Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants.^[101] In 1831, New York University was founded.^[102]

Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, John Keese, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Edgar Allan Poe. Members of the business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city.^[103]

The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, representing over a quarter of the city's population.^[104] Extensive immigration from the German provinces meant that Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860.^[105][106]

The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground.[105] At least 120 people were killed.^[107] Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865. The White working class had established dominance.^[105][107] It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.^[108]

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, was dedicated in New York Harbor. The statue welcomed 14 million immigrants as they arrived via Ellis Island by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the United States and American ideals of liberty and peace.^[109][110]

In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens.^[111] The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together.^[112] Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.^[113]

In 1904, the

New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890.^[116] New York City was a prime destination in the early 20th century for Blacks during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had the largest urban African diaspora in North America.^[117] The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition.^[118] The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height.^[119]

New York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed 10 million in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity.^[120] The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.^[121]

Returning

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.^[133] Growing fiscal deficits in 1975 led the city to appeal to the federal government for financial aid; President Gerald Ford gave a speech denying the request, which was paraphrased on the front page of the New York Daily News as "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."^[134] The Municipal Assistance Corporation was formed and granted oversight authority over the city's finances.^[135] While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.^[136]

By the mid-1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America.^{[citation needed]} New York City's population exceeded 8 million for the first time in the 2000 census;^[137] further records were set in the 2010 and 2020 censuses.^[138] Important new economic sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged.^[139]

The year 2000 was celebrated with fanfare in Times Square.^[140] New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.^[141] Two of the four hijacked airliners were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and the deaths of 2,753 people, including 343 first responders from the New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers.^[142]

The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.^[149]

New York City was heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, including flooding that led to the days-long shutdown of the subway system,^[150] and flooding of all East River subway tunnels and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel.^[151] The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days due to weather for the first time since the Great Blizzard of 1888.^[152] At least 43 people died in New York City as a result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $19 billion.^[153] The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas, with $15 billion in federal funding received through 2022 towards those resiliency efforts.^[154][155]

In March 2020, the first case of

New York City lies in the northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston. Its location at the mouth of the Hudson River, which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, has helped the city become a significant trading port. Most of the city is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

During the Wisconsin glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet.^[160] The erosive forward movement of the ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers.^[161]

The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into

The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s.^[164] Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.^[165]

The city's total area is 468.484 square miles (1,213.37 km²). 302.643 sq mi (783.84 km²) of the city is land and 165.841 sq mi (429.53 km²) of it is water.

New York City is sometimes referred to collectively as the Five Boroughs.^[170] Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State, making New York City one of the U.S. municipalities in multiple counties.

Manhattan (New York County) is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough. It is home to Central Park and most of the city's

Staten Island (Richmond County) is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. It is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry. In central Staten Island, the Staten Island Greenbelt spans approximately 2,500 acres (10 km²), including 28 miles (45 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city.^[192] Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks.

Under the Köppen climate classification, New York City has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and is the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this categorization. The suburbs to the immediate north and west are in the transitional zone between humid subtropical and humid continental climates (Dfa).^[193][194] The city receives an average of 49.5 inches (1,260 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. New York averages over 2,500 hours of sunshine annually.^[195]

Winters are chilly and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow sea breezes offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachian Mountains keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes.^[196] The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 33.3 °F (0.7 °C).^[197] Temperatures usually drop to 10 °F (−12 °C) several times per winter,^[198] yet can also reach 60 °F (16 °C) for several days even in the coldest winter month. Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from cool to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 77.5 °F (25.3 °C) in July.^[197]

Nighttime temperatures are 9.5 °F (5.3 °C) degrees higher for the average city resident due to the urban heat island effect, caused by paved streets and tall buildings.^[199] Daytime temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 17 days each summer and in some years exceed 100 °F (38 °C), although this is a rare occurrence, last noted on July 18, 2012.^{[200][201][202][203]} Similarly, readings of 0 °F (−18 °C) are extremely rare, last occurring on February 14, 2016.^[204] Extreme temperatures have ranged from 106 °F (41 °C), recorded on July 9, 1936, down to −15 °F (−26 °C) on February 9, 1934;^[197] the coldest recorded wind chill was −37 °F (−38 °C) on the same day as the all-time record low.^[205] Average winter snowfall between 1991 and 2020 was 29.8 inches (76 cm); this varies considerably between years. The record cold daily maximum was 2 °F (−17 °C) on December 30, 1917, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum was 87 °F (31 °C), on July 2, 1903.^[200] The average water temperature of the nearby Atlantic Ocean ranges from 39.7 °F (4.3 °C) in February to 74.1 °F (23.4 °C) in August.^[206]

The city of New York has a complex park system, with various lands operated by the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In its 2023 ParkScore ranking, the Trust for Public Land reported that the park system in New York City was the tenth-best park system among the most populous U.S. cities, citing the city's park acreage, investment in parks and that 99% of residents are within 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) of a park.^[210]

There are seven state parks within the confines of New York City. They include: the Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, a natural area that includes extensive riding trails; the Riverbank State Park, a 28-acre (11 ha) facility;^[214] and the Marsha P. Johnson State Park, a state park in Brooklyn and Manhattan that borders the East River renamed in honor of Marsha P. Johnson.^[215]

New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km²) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (23 km) of public beaches.^[216] The largest municipal park in the city is Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, with 2,772 acres (1,122 ha),^[191][217] and the most visited urban park is the Central Park, and one of the most filmed and visited locations in the world, with 42 million visitors in 2023.^[218]

Environmental issues in New York City are affected by the city's size, density, abundant public transportation infrastructure, and its location at the mouth of the Hudson River. For example, it is one of the country's biggest sources of pollution and has the lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions rate and electricity usage. Governors Island is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.^[221]

As an

New York's

According to the 2016 World Health Organization Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database,^[237] the annual average concentration in New York City's air of particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or less (PM_2.5) was 7.0 micrograms per cubic meter, or 3.0 micrograms within the recommended limit of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual mean PM_2.5.^[238] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in partnership with Queens College, conducts the New York Community Air Survey to measure pollutants at about 150 locations.^[239]

New York City is the most populous city in the United States,

Between 2010 and 2020, New York City gained 629,000 residents, more than the total gains over the same decade of the next four largest American cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix) combined.^[245][246] The city's population density of 27,744.1 inhabitants per square mile (10,712.1/km²) makes it the densest of any American municipality with a population above 100,000.^[172] Manhattan's population density is 70,450.8 inhabitants per square mile (27,201.2/km²), the highest of any county in the United States.^[172]

Based on data from the 2020 census, New York City comprises about 43.6% of the state's population of 20,202,320,^[4] and about 39% of the population of the New York metropolitan area.^[247] The majority of New York City residents in 2020 (5,141,539 or 58.4%) were living in Brooklyn or Queens, the two boroughs on Long Island.^[248] As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York,^{[22][249][250][251]} and the New York City metropolitan statistical area has the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami.^[252] Nearly seven times as many young professionals applied for jobs in New York City in 2023 as compared to 2019, making New York the most popular destination for recent college graduates.^[253]

According to 2022 estimates from the American Community Survey, the largest self-reported ancestries in New York City were Dominican (8.7%), Chinese (7.5%), Puerto Rican (6.9%), Italian (5.5%), Mexican (4.4%), Irish (4.4%), Asian Indian (3.1%), German (2.9%), Jamaican (2.4%), Ecuadorian (2.3%), English (2.1%), Polish (1.9%), Russian (1.7%), Arab (1.4%), Haitian (1.4%), Guyanese (1.3%), Filipino (1.1%), and Korean (1.1%).^{[255][14][15]}

Based on data from 2018 to 2022, approximately 36.3% of the city's population is