New York City is the largest city in the USA. It is located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern part of the State of New York. The city was founded in 1624 by the Dutch colonists, and was called New Amsterdam. In 1664, the British captured the city and renamed it New York in honor of the initiator of capture – the Duke of York.
The city consists of five boroughs: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island. The city area is 1214.9 km². The population of New York is over 8.4 million people (2013).
New York, along with London and Tokyo, is one of the three main centres of the world economy.
There are two airports in New York – John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and LaGuardia (LGA).
New York is a relatively young city (it is less than 400 years old), and its layout is not burdened with centuries-old layers of historical and architectural eras.
Skyscrapers are the basis of modern architecture in New York and are the city’s landmark (the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building).
The main attractions of New York are located in Manhattan: the Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, the American Museum of Natural History, the UN headquarters, and Harlem. The Statue of Liberty is located about 3 km southwest of the southern tip of Manhattan on Liberty Island.