residential real estate brooklyn ny General Information
| The City of New York | |||
 New York City at sunset | |||
| |||
| Nickname: The Big Apple, Gotham, The City That Never Sleeps | |||
 Location in the state of New York | |||
| Coordinates: 40°43′N 74°00′W / 40.717, -74 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | United States | ||
| State | New York | ||
| Boroughs | The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island | ||
| Settled | 1624 | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor | Michael Bloomberg (I) | ||
| Area | |||
| - City | 468.9 sq mi (1,214.4 km²) | ||
| - Land | 303.3 sq mi (785.6 km²) | ||
| - Water | 165.6 sq mi (428.8 km²) | ||
| - Urban | 3,352.6 sq mi (8,683.2 km²) | ||
| - Metro | 6,720 sq mi (17,405 km²) | ||
| Elevation | 33 ft (10 m) | ||
| Population (2006) | |||
| - City | 8,214,426 (13th) | ||
| - Density | 27,083/sq mi (10,456/km²) | ||
| - Urban | 18,498,000 | ||
| - Metro | 18,818,536 | ||
| - Demonym | New Yorker | ||
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) | ||
| Website: www.nyc.gov | |||
New York City (officially The City of New York) is the largest city in the state of New York and the largest city in the United States. The center of the New York metropolitan area, it ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. For more than a century, it has been one of the world's major centers of commerce and finance. New York City is rated as an alpha world city for its global influences in media, politics, education, entertainment and fashion. The city's cultural centers for arts are among the nation's most influential. The city is a major center for foreign affairs, hosting the headquarters of the United Nations. Residents of the city are known as New Yorkers. The current mayor of New York City is Michael Bloomberg.
New York City comprises five boroughs, each of which is coterminous with a county: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. With over 8.2 million residents within an area of 322 square miles (830 km²), New York City is the second most densely populated city in the United States, behind Union City, New Jersey, located across the Hudson River.
The city has many neighborhoods and landmarks known around the world. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at Ellis Island. Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II and is home to the New York Stock Exchange. The city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building and the former twin towers of the World Trade Center, which were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The city is the birthplace of many American 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, and Tin Pan Alley in music. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36 percent of its population was born outside the United States. With its 24-hour subway and constant bustling of traffic and people, New York is known as "The City That Never Sleeps."