New York City (officially City of New York) is the largest city in the United States and one of the world's major global cities. Located in the state of New York, the city has a population of over 8.1 million within an area of 469 square miles. Its metropolitan area has a population of 18.7 million and is one of the largest urban areas by population in the world.

New York City is an international center for business, finance, fashion, medicine, entertainment, media and culture, with an extraordinary collection of museums, galleries, performance venues (most notably Broadway theatre), media outlets, international corporations, and financial markets. The city is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations, and to many of the world's most famous skyscrapers.

Popularly known as the "Big Apple", the "City That Never Sleeps", or the "Capital of the World", the city attracts large numbers of immigrants with hundreds of languages spoken from around the world; over one-third of its population is foreign-born, as well as people from all over the United States who come for its culture, diversity, fast-paced lifestyle, cosmopolitanism, and economic opportunity.

New York City is located at the center of the BosWash megalopolis, 218 miles driving distance from Boston and 220 miles from Washington, D.C. The city is situated on the three major islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and western Long Island. The Bronx is the only borough that is part of the mainland United States.

Writer Tom Wolfe said of New York that "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather." Many major American cultural movements began in the city. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The city was the epicenter of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. Punk rock developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has also been a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature.

Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that became internationally established. Artists are drawn to the city by opportunity, as well; there are 2,000 arts and cultural non-profits and 500 art galleries of all sizes, and the city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.

The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theatre productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began showcasing a new stage form that came to be known as the Broadway musical. Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, these productions used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition. Today these productions are a mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city's 39 largest theatres are collectively known as "Broadway," after the major thoroughfare through the Times Square theatre district.

The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, is the largest performing arts center in the United States.