NEW YORK CITY

NEW YORK CITY

New York City is the largest city in the United States and New York. Over 8 million people live in it, and over 22 million people live in and around it. It is in the state of New York, which is in the northeastern United States.

HISTORYThe oldest part of the city, the island of Manhattan, still has its original Lenape Native American name. Although Native people such as the Lenape and Canarsees had lived there for many thousands of years, New York City was first explored by Europeans in the 1500s. Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano found the entrance to New York Harbor in the year 1524 and English explorer Henry Hudson named the Hudson River in 1609.

Giovanni de Verrazzano

New York City was settled by Europeans from The Netherlands in 1624. The Dutch called the whole area of New York "Nieuw Nederland" (New Netherland) and they named a fort and town on the south end of Manhattan Island Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), after the capital city of the Netherlands, which was to become present-day New York.

New Amsterdam

When the English took over the colony in 1664 they changed the name to New York, to honor the Duke of York, who later became King James II of England. The Dutch surrendered Nieuw Amsterdam without fighting. They were afraid of the English Royal Navy, so they traded the town to England for the colony of Surinam in South America, which they thought was worth more money.

The duke of York.

By the time the English took New York, there were many other Dutch towns in what would become New York City, including Breukelen (Brooklyn), Vlissingen (Flushing), and Nieuw Haarlem (Harlem). There were already some English towns in the area also, such as Gravesend in Brooklyn and Newtown in Queens. Dutch and English people had been living together in New York for a long time.

New York quickly grew to become a large and important port city. Important battles of the American Revolution were fought in northern Manhattan and in Brooklyn in 1776. New York was the capital of the United States under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1788. When the US Constitution was made, it stayed as the capital from 1789 until 1790.

The battle of Long Island.

In 1898, the cities of New York and Brooklyn came together with the Bronx, Staten Island, and the towns in Queens County to make Greater New York. This is the total area of the City of New York today. Around this time, many new immigrants came into New York City. They came in at Ellis Island, an island in New York's harbor near the Statue of Liberty. Many of them then moved to the Lower East Side neighborhood in Manhattan, which had over a million people living in just a few square miles.

Ellis Island.

Statue of Liberty.

Lower East Side.

GEOGRAPHYMost of New York City is on three islands near the Atlantic Ocean, although one part is on the mainland of North America. The city includes all of Manhattan Island and Staten Island, and the western end of Long Island. There are also many smaller islands.

Staten Island

Long Island

The city is divided into five major parts called boroughs. Each one is also a county. They are:Manhattan (New York County, on Manhattan Island)Brooklyn (Kings County, on Long Island)The Bronx (Bronx County, on the mainland)Queens (Queens County, on Long Island)Staten Island (Richmond County, on Staten Island)

Manhattan

Manhattan at night.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn.

Bronx

Bronx

Queens.

Queens

Staten Island

Staten Island.

Water divides several parts of the city. Part of the Hudson River forms the border between Manhattan and the Bronx on one side, and the State of New Jersey on the other side. The East River forms the border between Manhattan on one side, and Brooklyn and Queens on the other side. The Harlem River forms the border between Manhattan and the Bronx (except for a small part of Manhattan that is on the mainland).

Hudson River

East River.

Part of Long Island Sound forms the border between the Bronx and Queens. Newtown Creek is part of the border between Brooklyn and Queens. Some parts of the city are very separate from the others because of water, such as Far Rockaway in Queens and City Island in the Bronx. A small piece of land in Manhattan is international territory and it belongs to the United Nations to use for its buildings.

Long Island Sound

United Nations.

The hallmark of New York city is its many skyscrapers, especially in Manhattan. In New York City there are about 5600 skyscrapers. 48 of them are over 200 metres tall, which is the highest number of skyscrapers in one area in the world.

Empire State Building

New York City currently has over 8 million people. Over 18 million people live in the city and nearby areas. The majority of the people in New York City belong to ethnic groups that are minorities in the US. New York City has had large numbers of immigrants for centuries. In the early 19th Century, they came from Ireland and Germany. Later in the 19th century, they came from Italy, Russia and Eastern Europe. Today, many are from Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Colombia.

New Yorkers.

TRANSPORTATIONSubway transportation is provided by the New York City Subway system, one of the biggest in the world.Pennsylvania Station, the busiest train station in the United States, is here.John F. Kennedy International Airport, which is in the Queens neighborhood of New York, is one of the busiest airports in the United States.

New York City Subway.

Pennsylvania Station.

John F. Kennedy Airport.

New York Taxi

GOVERNMENTThe current mayor of New York is Michael Bloomberg, an Independent. The city also has a City Council that makes some local laws. Most laws in New York City are set by the state government in Albany.

Michael Bloomberg

ECONOMYNew 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 New York Stock Exchange.

The city is a major center for banking and finance, retailing, world trade, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media as well as traditional media, advertising, legal services, accountancy, insurance, theater, fashion, and the arts in the United States.

Many major corporations are headquartered in New York City, including 45 Fortune 500 companies.New York is also unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations.Wall Street is the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long, 0.7 miles (1.1 km) long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole.

Deutsche Bank headquarther

The city's television and film industry is the second largest in the country after Hollywood.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.

Wall Street

Lincoln Center

ENTERTAINMENTNew York is a prominent location in the American entertainment industry, with films, television series, books, and other media being set there.New York City is the second largest center for the film industry in the United States, with 63,000 workers.More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city and the book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.

Filmset

Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. 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.

Newspaperreaders

SPORTS Four of the ten most expensive stadiums ever built worldwide (MetLife Stadium, the new Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Citi Field) are located in the New York metropolitan area.

Citi Field.

The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Mets and the New York Yankees.The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Giants and the New York Jets.

New York Giants

The New York Rangers represent the city in the National Hockey League.The city's National Basketball Association teams include the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks.In soccer, New York is represented by the Major League Soccer side, New York Red Bulls.

New York Rangers

Brooklyn Nets

New York Red Bulls.

TOURISMTourism in New York City serves nearly 47 million foreign and American tourists each year including day-trippers.

Times Square.

FOODNew York City's food culture includes a variety of world cuisines influenced by the city's immigrant history. Eastern European and Italian immigrants have made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake and New York-style pizza, while Chinese and other Asian restaurants, burger joints, Italian restaurants, diners and coffee shops are ubiquitous. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city.

Streetfood.

CRIMEViolent crime in New York City has been dropping since 1990.In 2012, there were 414 homicides, the lowest number since at least 1963 when reliable statistics were first keptCrime rates spiked in the 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic hit the city. Most of the crime remaining occurs in poor areas.

NYPD

FAMOUS SITES

Statue of Liberty

Empire State Building.

Rockefeller Center.

George Washington Bridge.

United Nations

Central Park.

Times Square