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New York City (officially the City of New York) is a city in the state of New York and is the most populous city in the United States of America. Its business, finance and trading organizations are significant players in the nation's economy and in the world's. The city is one of the world's most important cultural centers with hundreds of museums, galleries, and performance venues. Home of the United Nations, it is also one of the world's major venues for international diplomacy.
The city comprises five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. With 8.2 million residents and a land area of 321 square miles, New York City has the highest population density of any major city in North America. The city's metropolitan area, with a population of 18.7 million, ranks among the largest urban areas in the world.
History
The Lenape Native Americans inhabited the region at the time of its European discovery by an Italian, Giovanni da Verrazzano. European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement, later called "New Amsterdam," on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1614. Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie Native Americans in 1626. In 1664, the British conquered the city and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany.
New York's social and economic upheavals abated in the 1980s as resurgence in the critical financial industry improved the city's fiscal health. By the 1990s racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy and New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census.
The city was one of the sites of the September 11, 2001 attacks, when nearly 3,000 people were killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center. It was the worst terrorist attack ever to occur in the United States. The Freedom Tower is to be built on the site and is scheduled for completion in 2012.
Geography
New York City is located on the coast of the Northeastern United States at the mouth of the Hudson River in southeastern New York State. The city's geography is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. This position helped the city grow in significance as a trading city. Much of New York is built on the three islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and western
Climate
Although located at about the same latitude as the southern Italian city of Naples, New York has a humid continental climate resulting from prevailing wind patterns that bring cool air from the interior of the North American continent. New York winters are typically cold with moderate snowfall. The city's coastal position keeps temperatures relatively warmer than inland regions. It has a frost-free period lasting an average of 220 days between seasonal freezes.
Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the world. The writer Tom Wolfe said of New York "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather." Many major American cultural movements began in the city. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The city was the epicenter of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip-hop in the 1970s. The city's punk rock scene was 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, The Mooney Suzuki and Interpol.
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.
Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which became internationally established. The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theatre productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began showcasing a new stage form the Broadway musical.
Today these productions are a mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city's 39 largest theatres (more than 500 seats) are collectively known as "Broadway," after the major thoroughfare that crosses the Times Square theatre district.
The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, is the largest performing arts center in the United States. Summer stage 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.
Transportation
Grand Central Terminal is one of the two busiest rail stations in the United States. Public transit is the overwhelmingly dominant form of travel for New Yorkers. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its not suburbs. While in rest of the country, about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace. New York is the only city in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (in Manhattan, more than 75% of residents do not own a car; nationally, the percentage is 8%).
The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles, or 1,056 km of mainline track), and the fourth largest by annual ridership (1.4 billion passenger trips in 2005). The transportation system in New York City is extensive and complex. It includes the longest suspension bridge in North America, the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel, more than 12,000 yellow cabs and an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan.
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