New York

New York City (officially the City of New York) is a city in the southern area of the state
of New York and the most populous city in the United States of America. Its business,
finance, trading, law, and media organizations are influential around the globe.The city is
one of the world's most important cultural centers, with hundreds of world-class
museums, galleries, and performance venues. Home of the United Nations, the city is
also one of the world's major venues for international diplomacy.

The city is comprised of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and
Staten Island. With over 8.1 million residents within an area of 322 square miles (830
km2), New York City has the highest population density of any major city in North
America.The city's metropolitan area, with a population of 18.8 million, ranks fourth
among the largest urban areas in the world.

New York City has been a dominant global financial center since World War II. It is also
the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance
in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism in painting, and hip hop in music. The
city's cultural vitality has been fueled by immigration since its founding by Dutch
colonists in 1625. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36 percent
of its population was foreign born.

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 Long Island,making land scarce and encouraging a high population density.The
Hudson River flows from the Hudson Valley into New York Bay, becoming a tidal
estuary that separates the city from New Jersey. The East River, actually a tidal strait,
flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island.
The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separates
Manhattan from the Bronx.

The city's land has been altered considerably by human intervention, with substantial land
reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most
notable in Lower Manhattan with modern developments like Battery Park City. Much of
the natural variations in topography have been evened out, particularly in Manhattan.The
city's land area is 321 mi2 (831.4 km2). The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on
Staten Island, which at 409.8 ft (124.9 m) above sea level is the highest point on the
Eastern Seaboard south of Maine. The summit of the ridge is largely covered in
woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
CLIMATE:
Although located at about the same latitude as the much warmer European cities of
Naples and Madrid, New York has a humid continental climate (Köppen classification
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. April, May,
and November are typically the months with greatest precipitation. Spring and Fall in
New York City are mild, while summer is very warm and humid, with temperatures of
90°F (32°C) or higher recorded from 18 to 25 days on average during the season.The
city's longterm climate patterns are affected by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a
70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and
severity of hurricanes and coastal storms in the region.

ENVIRONMENT:
Environmental issues in the city are chiefly concerned with managing its extraordinary
population density, which is a factor in making New York among the most energy
efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States but also concentrates
pollution. Mass transit use is the highest in the nation and gasoline consumption in the
city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s. New York City, however, is
responsible for 1% of the nation's total greenhouse gas emissions. The city's levels are
nevertheless relatively low when measured per capita, at 7.1 metric tons per person,
below San Francisco, at 11.2 metric tons, and the national average, at 24.5.

In recent years the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. The city
government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in
city offices and public housing. New York has the largest clean air diesel-hybrid and
compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis.The
city is also a leader in energy-efficient green office building, such as Hearst Tower.The
average New Yorker consumes less than half the electricity used by a resident of San
Francisco and nearly one-quarter the electricity consumed by a resident of Dallas.
Although New York City is more populous than all but eleven states, if it were granted
statehood it would rank fifty first in per-capita energy use.

The city is supplied with water by the vast Catskill Mountains watershed[1], one of the
largest protected wilderness areas in the United States. As a result of the watershed's
integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration process, city drinking water does not
require purification by water treatment plants.

TURISM:
About 40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year.Major
destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Broadway theatre
productions, scores of museums such as the El Museo del Barrio, Washington Square
Park, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and
Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the
Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. Many of
the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights,Flushing, and Brighton Beach are
major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the
East Coast.

New York City has 28,000 acres (113 km2) of parkland and 14 miles (22 km) of public
beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert
Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also
designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36 Hectare) meadow. Flushing Meadows
Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964
World's Fair.

New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining
patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels,
cheesecake and New York style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the
city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and
kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food.The city is also home to many of
the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.