Five boroughs make America’s densest major city-state of harbor
New York City, the United States’ most populous city, sits on a vast natural harbor at New York State’s southern tip. Five boroughs—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island—held an estimated 8.59 million people in 2026 across about 300 square miles, more than double Los Angeles.
New York sits at the southern tip of New York State on one of the largest natural harbours in the world. Each borough doubles as a county in its own right. The city anchors both the Northeast megalopolis and the largest metropolitan area in the United States, and it hosts the headquarters of the United Nations alongside its weight in finance, media, science, the arts and fashion.
When Dutch colonists set up Fort Amsterdam as a trading post around 1624, Manhattan was home to Munsee-speaking Lenape. The settlement became New Amsterdam in 1626 and a chartered city in 1653. England seized it in 1664 and renamed it for the Duke of York, brother of Charles II, a name made permanent in 1674. After independence it served as the national capital from 1785 to 1790, and the modern city took shape when the five boroughs consolidated in 1898.
An estimated 8,586,038 people lived on its 300.46 square miles in 2026, making it the densest major American city and more than twice as populous as Los Angeles. The metropolitan statistical area held over 20.1 million people in 2020 and the wider combined area over 23.5 million. It is the country's main gateway for legal immigrants. Some 800 languages are spoken, the most of any city, and its region has the world's largest foreign-born population, about 5.9 million in 2023.
Wall Street makes it arguably the world's leading financial and fintech centre, home to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, the two largest exchanges by market value. In 2024 the metro economy topped US$2.44 trillion, larger than all but nine countries. Wealth brings strain: as of 2025 it was the world's most expensive city for expatriates, with the highest rents in the United States, and it has more billionaires and millionaires than any other city. Despite round-the-clock rapid transit, it also leads the world in traffic congestion.
Source: New York City
