-
Topschoolsintheusa.com: Intended to pursue an associate degree in the
state of New York? Here is a full list of both public and private community
colleges within New York.
New York, New York
According to Countryaah.com, New York City is the largest city in the United States and is located at the
mouth of the Hudson River in the state of New York. The city itself has a land
area of approximately 789 square kilometers and has 8,622,698 residents (U.S.
Census, 2017). The metropolitan area of New York consists of the city
of New York, Long Island, the lower Hudson Valley in the state of New York, the
five largest cities in New Jersey (including Newark and Jersey City), six of the
largest cities in Connecticut (including Bridgeport, New Haven and Stamford) as
well as five counties in Pennsylvania. This area is approximately 34,500 square
kilometers and, with its 20,320,876 residents (U.S. Census, 2017), is the most
populous urban region in the United States.
New York is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, although the
number of foreign-born is significantly lower today than before. More than 37
percent (2014) were born outside the United States. Previously, the largest
groups were of Italian, German, Russian, Polish or Irish descent, while most are
now from the Dominican
Republic, China, Mexico, Guyana, Jamaica, Ecuador and Haiti. The Jewish population
numbers about 1.5 million, half of whom live in Brooklyn. There are more than
20,000 residents of Norwegian origin in New York.
Administrative division
The city has, since 1898, consisted of five boroughs, boroughs :
1) Manhattan (which includes the original New York), an island between the
Hudson River and the East River. 2) The Bronx, located northeast of Manhattan,
is the only part of New York located on the mainland (yet separate from that of
the Harlem River). 3) Queens, which with its approximately 280 square miles is
the largest district, is located on the west end of Long
Island. 4) Brooklyn with about 2.6 million residents (2014) is the most populous
district. It is also located on Long Island, south and west of Queens, separated
from Manhattan by the East River. 5) Staten Island(formerly Richmond), an island
separated from Long Island by The Narrows and from New Jersey by the
straits of Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull.
In the upper reaches of New York Bay, Upper New York Bay, are three
federally managed islands: Governors Island at the entrance to the East
River, Liberty Island with the famous Statue of Liberty or Statue of Liberty,
and Ellis Island, with the former immigration station. Ellis Island now forms,
together with Liberty Island, the so-called Statue of Liberty National
Monument, which includes the Statue of Liberty.
History
Before Europeans arrived, the area around present-day New York was populated
by a number of Indigenous tribes primarily by the Lenápe group,
including Algonkin and Delaware. They lived on present-day Staten Island, west
on Long Island - now the Bronx and Queens - in Manhattan and in the Lower Hudson
Valley.
The first known European to visit the New York area was Giovanni da
Verrazzano in 1524. He was from Florence, but sailed in the service of the
French king, Frans Is, and gave the place the name Nouvelle Angoulême after the
king's county in France. Verrazzano has been named after the New York entrance, Verrazzano
Narrows. In January 1525, a Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese
Estêvão Gomes anchored in the mouth of the Hudson River, but ice prevented
further exploration up the river. The first scientific map of 1527 showing the
entire upper part of the U.S. East Coast dates from this expedition, and the
present northeastern part of the United States was called Tierra de Esteban
Gómez.
In 1609, the Englishman Henry Hudson rediscovered the area in his quest for
the Northwest Passage to the East for the Dutch East India Company. He sailed up
the North River - now named the Hudson River after him - as far as
present-day Albany, the capital of the state of New York. In 1614, the area
between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was taken over by the Dutch and given the
name Nieuw-Nederland, Ny-Nederland. A permanent European settlement
started in 1624 when Dutch fur traders settled on Governors Island.
In 1625, construction of Fort Amsterdam started on Manhattan Island, later
called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam) with its center in present-day Lower
Manhattan. The head of the colony, the Dutchman Peter Minuit, bought the island
from the local indigenous people in 1626 for 60 guilders (about 8000
kroner). The fact that Minuit actually bought Manhattan has later been disputed,
as it is claimed that the indigenous people's non-existent knowledge of the
concept of property rights meant that the trade was not done on equal terms and
that they did not therefore understand the agreement they signed. The legend
that the island was purchased for glass beads worth $ 24 has never been
documented.
Governor Peter Stuyvesant - the name is found in the Bedford-Stuyvesant
district of Brooklyn - founded Harlem (originally in Nieuw Haarlem) in 1658, but
in 1664 he surrendered the entire colony to the English without a fight. They
immediately changed their name to New York after Duke of York, who later became
King James II. In 1673, the Dutch, under the leadership of Anthony Colve,
assumed control and changed the name to Nieuw Oranje after the prince
of Oranien, later King William 3. But the dominion remained short-lived as the
English, in collaboration with the French, attacked Dutch trade routes, and the
area came to an end in English hands in 1674.
The English developed New York as a very important trading center in the 18th
century. Less commendable was that New York also became a center for slave
trade. By 1730, more than 40 percent of New York households had slaves, more
than any other city except Charleston in South Carolina. Slaves were used both
within their own household and rented out for work, especially in trade and
shipping with the Southern States.
The Battle of Long Island in August 1776 was the single largest battle in the
independence struggle (1763-1783), and was fought in present-day
Brooklyn. Following the loss of the Americans, New York became the British
military and political center in North America. That same year, a major fire
broke out, the Great Fire of New York, which destroyed more than a
quarter of the city and the entire West Side of Manhattan.
In 1785, New York became the formal capital of the United States, and in 1789
the country's first president, George Washington, was inducted during a ceremony
at the Federal Hall on Wall Street. In 1790, New York passed Philadelphia as the
nation's most populous city.
In the 19th century, the city quickly became the United States' most
important trade center and the gateway to the new world for immigrants from
Europe. In 1811, the distinctive Manhattan street plan was adopted, and in 1825
the 584-kilometer Erie Canal between the Hudson River and Lake Erie
was completed. This linked New York's port with the agricultural markets and
production areas in much of the hinterland. The canal was particularly important
for grain transport until the railroad took over in the 1870s.
The great famine in Ireland contributed to a large group of immigrants. In
1860, there were over 200,000 Irish people in New York - more than 25 percent of
the city's population. There was also great immigration from Germany during
these years, and the Germans made up more than 20 percent of the population.
In 1898, modern-day New York was shaped by the fact that Brooklyn - which had
been a city of its own by then - along with the County of New York (parts of the
Bronx), the County of Richmond and Queens were brought together to New York
City. The subway was opened in 1904, and it effectively linked the various units
of the new metropolis. Throughout the 1900s, New York developed into a world
center for industry, commerce and communications.
In the early 1920s, New York passed London as the world's largest urban area,
and around 1932 more than 10 million people lived in Greater New York (metropolitan
area). After World War II, residential construction, especially in Queens,
exploded, while New York at Wall Street's expansion became the world's
undisputed center for trade and finance. Established in 1952, the United
Nations Headquarters on the east side of Manhattan reinforced the city's
international geopolitical leadership - at the same time as the development
of expressionism helped New York take over Paris' hegemony as the art center of
the world.
In the 1970s, industrial changes led to economic problems and
increased crime in the city. Despite Wall Street and the financial environment
contributing to improved finances in the 1980s, crime continued to rise well
into the 1990s. In 1995, crime began to fall dramatically due to revised
political strategies, a rising economy and the influx of new ethnic groups from
Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors such as computer
technology in Silicon Valley contributed greatly to economic growth.
New York's population continued to grow. It reached eight million in 2000,
and growth has continued to about 8.5 million in 2015.
|
