Eight Hundred Languages in One City
An estimated 800 languages are spoken in New York City, which makes it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. No other place comes close.
That diversity has a simple source. The city and its surrounding area serve as the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States, and the New York metropolitan region is home to the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region on Earth, roughly 5.9 million people as of 2023.
The crowding is real. With an estimated population of 8,586,038 as of 2026 packed into 300.46 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States, and it holds more than double the population of Los Angeles. Over 20.1 million people live in its wider metropolitan statistical area.
Five Boroughs on a Great Harbour
New York sits at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harbours. Geography, not planning, is what made it a trading city.
It is made of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Each one is coextensive with its own county, a quirk that means a single city contains five counties.
The city anchors the Northeast megalopolis and the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. It is a global centre of technology, finance, commerce, culture, entertainment, media, academics, the arts and fashion, and as the home of the United Nations headquarters, of international diplomacy as well. It is known, fairly, for its fast pace and relentless energy.
From New Amsterdam to New York
Before Europeans arrived, the area was inhabited by Algonquian peoples including the Munsee-speaking Lenape, whose homeland covered Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, western Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley. The first documented European visit to New York Harbor was by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524.
Dutch colonists established Fort Amsterdam as a trading centre on Manhattan Island, the first European settlement in what became the city. It was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and chartered as a city in 1653.
Control changed hands in 1664, when England seized it and renamed it New York in honour of the Duke of York, brother of Charles II. The name became permanent in 1674. After independence the city served as the national capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and the modern five-borough city was formed by consolidation in 1898.
The Most Expensive Place to Land
Anchored by Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District, New York has been called both the world's premier financial centre and the most economically powerful city on Earth. As of 2024 its metropolitan area had the largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a gross metropolitan product of over 2.44 trillion dollars, which is larger than the entire economy of all but nine countries.
It hosts the two largest stock exchanges in the world by market capitalisation of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
The cost of all this is brutal. As of 2025 New York is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates and has the highest residential rents of any American city. Manhattan produces the highest county GDP in the country and has by a wide margin the most expensive average home price per square foot. The city is home to more billionaires than any other, and despite a 24-hour rapid transit system, it leads the world in urban road traffic congestion.
