New York City Travel and Registration

New York (city) is a huge city with several district articles containing sightseeing, restaurant, nightlife and accommodation listings — consider printing them all.

New York (also referred to as "New York City" or "the City"), the biggest city in New York state, lies at the mouth of the Hudson River in the southern most part of the state, which is part of the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA.

The New York Metropolitan Area spans parts of three states—lower New York, northern New Jersey, and southwestern Connecticut. It is the USA's largest metro area, with a population of 18.7 million. As of 2007, it was 5th in the world, after Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Seoul.

New York City is a center for media, culture, food, fashion, art, research, finance, and trade. It has the largest and most famous skyline on earth, dominated by the iconic Empire State Building.

Districts

New York City consists of five boroughs, which are five separate counties. Each borough has a unique culture—each could be a large city in its own right. Within each borough individual neighborhoods—some only a few blocks in size—have personalities lauded in music and film. Where you live, work, and play in New York says something to New Yorkers about who you are.

The five New York boroughs are:

Manhattan (New York County) — The famous island between the Hudson and East Rivers, with many diverse and unique neighborhoods. It is the CBD/City Centre of NYC.

Brooklyn (Kings County) — The most populous borough, at one point a separate city. Located south and east of Manhattan across the East River. Known for artists, music venues, beaches, and Coney Island.

Queens (Queens County) — U-shaped and located to the east of Manhattan, across the East River, and north, east, and south of Brooklyn. Queens is the home of the city's two international airports, the New York Mets professional baseball team, the United States Open Tennis Center, the country's second largest Chinatown.

The Bronx (Bronx County) — Located north of Manhattan Island, the Bronx is home to the Bronx Zoo and the New York Yankees professional baseball team.

Staten Island (Richmond County) — A large island in New York harbor, south of Manhattan and just across the narrow Kill Van Kull from New Jersey. Unlike the rest of New York City, Staten Island has a suburban character.

Orientation

At the center of New York City sits the borough of Manhattan, a long, narrow island nestled in a natural harbor. It is separated from The Bronx on the north east by the Harlem River (actually a tidal strait); from Queens and Brooklyn to the east and south by the East River (also a tidal strait); and from the State of New Jersey to the west and north by the Hudson River. (Staten Island lies to the south west, across Upper New York Bay.)

In Manhattan, the terms “uptown” and “north” mean in the direction of the Bronx, north east on the compass, while “downtown” and “south” mean in the direction of the Battery, to the south west. To avoid confusion, simply use “uptown” and “downtown.”

The term “the city” may refer either to New York City as a whole, or to Manhattan alone, depending on the context. The Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens are sometimes referred to as “the outer boroughs.”
Climate

New York City has a humid continental climate and experiences all four seasons with hot and humid summers (June-Sept), cool and dry autumns (Sept-Dec), cold winters (Dec-Mar), and wet springs (Mar-June). Average highs for January are around 38°F (3°C) and average highs for July are about 84°F (29°C). However, temperatures in the winter can go down to as low as 10°F (-12°C) and in the summer, temperatures can go as high as 100°F (38°C). The temperature in any season is quite variable and it is not unusual to have a sunny 50°F (10°C) day in January followed by a snowy 25°F (-3°C) day. New York can also be prone to snowstorms and nor'easters, which can dump as much as 2 feet of snow. Hurricanes can also hit New York City in the summertime, although they tend to be weak. Overall, New York is warmer than inland cities like Chicago and Cleveland, but, in winter, it can seem a lot colder because you spend a lot more time outdoors.

People

The diverse population includes some of America's wealthiest celebrities and socialites, as well as hundreds of thousands of immigrants. New York's population has been diverse since the city's founding by the Dutch. Successive waves of immigration—first Dutch, then British, African, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, Jamaican, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, Haitian, Korean, Indian, Arab —make New York a giant social experiment in cross-cultural harmony.

The city's ethnic heritage illuminates different neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. In Manhattan, Little Italy remains an operating (if touristy and increasingly Chinese) Italian enclave, though many New Yorkers consider Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to be the "real" Little Italy. Chinatown remains a vibrant center of New York's Chinese community, though in recent years the much larger Chinese neighborhood of Flushing in Queens has rivaled if not eclipsed it in importance, and two other Chinatowns have formed in Brooklyn. Traces of the Lower East Side's once-thriving Jewish community still exist amid the newly-gentrified neighborhood's trendy restaurants and bars, but there are Chassidic communities in Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Harlem has been gentrifying and diversifying lately but remains a center of African-American culture in New York. East (Spanish) Harlem still justifies its reputation as a large Hispanic neighborhood. Little known to most tourists are the large Dominican neighborhoods of West Harlem and Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are known for being home to many of New York's more recent immigrant groups, which since 1990 have included large numbers of Russians, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Koreans, Africans, Arabs, Mexicans, and Jamaicans.

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