New York is the biggest city in the Usa, with almost 18 million inhabitants if we count the whole metropolitan area, or only 7 million in the central area. The density of the population is over 9 thousand people per 1 sq km.

New York covers the area of 780 sq km and has five major parts : Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn. The blach quarter – Harlem – is in northern part of Manhattan.

The origainal inhabitants in the area where New york is todya ewre native Americans and the oldest part of New york bears a Native name – Manhattan Island. The island was bought from the Natives by the Dutch in 1625 for goods worth US$ 25. The original name of New York was New Amsterdam. In 1644 the British captured the city and renamed it New York. Because of its favourable position it soon became an important trading port. By 1775 its population was about 25 000.

In the southern part of Manhattan island there used to be a wall against Indians; the place is now called Wall Street. It is the centre of financial life with the most important stock-exchange in the world.

Manhattan City Plan
The city has been built so that the streets and avenues follow a geometric pattern and are numbered. Streets ren east-west and avenues nort-south (e.g. The Fifth Avenue which is the shopping centre of NY, with many exclusive shops, boutiques, etc.)
Only a few of the streets and avenues – the oldest ones – have got their names, for example Wall Street or Broadway. Broadway runs north-south nearly the whole length of the island and it is the centre of New York`s cultural life with the famous Broadway theatres. The island is washed by two rivers – the East River and the Hudson River.

Skyscrapers
New York is famous for its Manhattan skyline – a large number of skyscrapers on a small area. They started to build skyscrapers there because of the lack of space and the high price of land on the island. The first skyscraper here were built in 1903 and 1913. a skyscraper uses a steel frame rather than the walls to support the vertical load. Now they are built with the hepl of computers which can take into consideration all possible phenomena such as wind, or earthquakes. Skyscrapers are also an interesting sociological phenomenon as the building is a small city itself – it offers residential quarters, office space, parking lots, restaurants, shopping facilities, fitness centres, swimming pools.