About New York City

About 8 million people reside in New York City, proper (the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island), and the metropolitan area encompasses about 22 million people (including parts of Connecticut and New Jersey). New York is currently the third largest city in the world, behind Mexico City and Tokyo.

While newer U.S. cities (Atlanta, Dallas, Denver) have 3,000 to 6,000 residents per square mile, and other older cities (Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago) have 12,000 to 13,000, Manhattan has 60,000 residents per square mile (1.5 million people), and it is estimated that the density rises to over 250,000 people per square mile on weekdays, with commuters. Midtown Manhattan on a typical workday is the most densely populated place on the earth.

New York is really a network of major international cities. In it lies a West Indian city of 800,000 in Brooklyn, a Dominican city of 500,000 in Upper Manhattan, Haitian and Colombian cities of 200,000 in Queens, two Chinatowns of over 100,000 each in Manhattan and Flushing (Queens), and centers of 150,000 Arabs and Middle Easterners in northern Brooklyn, 80,000 Greeks in Astoria (Queens), and 50,000 Russians in Brighton Beach (Brooklyn). Millions of the current wave of U.S. immigration (Hispanic and Asian) come to New York for a generation before assimilating into the suburban mainstream, as did their predecessors. New York is more diverse than any other city in the United States.

New York competes with Paris as fashion and art capital (and has more French restaurants!), with London as theatre and literature capital, with Tokyo as financial and corporate capital, with Washington DC as power capital, and with Los Angeles as media capital. It is second only to Boston in number of college students.