Located on one of the world's
largest natural harbors,[21] New York City consists of five boroughs
which were consolidated in 1898:[22] The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan,
Queens, and Staten Island.[23] With a 2010 United States Census
population of 8,175,133[7] distributed over a land area of just 305
square miles (790 km2),[24][25][26] New York is the most densely
populated major city in the United States.[27] As many as 800 languages
are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city
in the world.[28] The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is
the United States' largest, estimated at 18.9 million people distributed
over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km2),[8][29] and is also part of the
most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing
22.2 million people as of 2009 Census estimates.[30] New York has the
largest internet presence of any location in the world; registering 7.1
billion search results as of December 2011.[31]
New York
traces its roots to its 1624 founding as a trading post by colonists of
the Dutch Republic, and was named New Amsterdam in 1626.[32] The city
and its surrounds came under English control in 1664[33][34] and were
renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to
his brother, the Duke of York.[35][36] New York served as the capital of
the United States from 1785 until 1790.[37] It has been the country's
largest city since 1790.[38] The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of
immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early
20th centuries[39] and is a globally recognized symbol of the United
States and its democracy.[40]
Many districts and landmarks in
New York City have become well known to its approximately 50 million
annual visitors.[41][42][43] Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads
of the World",[44][45][46][47][48] is the brightly illuminated hub of
the Broadway theater district,[49] one of the world's busiest pedestrian
intersections,[50] and a major center of the world's entertainment
industry.[51] The city hosts many world renowned bridges,
skyscrapers,[52] and parks. New York City's financial district, anchored
by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital
of the world[53][54][55][56][57][58][59] and is home to the New York
Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by total market
capitalization of its listed companies.[60] Manhattan's real estate
market is among the most expensive in the world.[61] Manhattan's
Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in
the Western Hemisphere.[62][63][64][65] Unlike most global rapid transit
systems, the New York City Subway provides 24/7 service.[66] Numerous
colleges and universities are located in New York,[67] including
Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University,
which are ranked among the top 50 in the world
The
original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings
featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United
States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001
during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt
with five new skyscrapers and a memorial to the casualties of the
attacks. As of November 2011, only one skyscraper has been completed,
with four more expected to be completed before 2020. One World Trade
Center will be the lead building for the new complex and is expected to
be finished by 2013. A sixth tower is still awaiting confirmation to be
built. At the time of their completion, the original 1 and 2 World Trade
Center, known colloquially as the Twin Towers, were the tallest
buildings in the world.
The complex was designed in the early
1960s by Minoru Yamasaki and Associates of Troy, Michigan, and Emery
Roth and Sons of New York.[2] The twin 110-story towers used a
tube-frame structural design. To gain approval for the project, the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson
& Manhattan Railroad, which became the Port Authority Trans-Hudson
(PATH). Groundbreaking for the World Trade Center took place on August
5, 1966. The North Tower (1) was completed in December 1972 and the
South Tower (2) was finished in July 1973. The construction project
involved excavating a large amount of material, which was later used as
landfill to build Battery Park City on the west side of Lower Manhattan.
The cost for the construction was $400 million ($2,200,000,000 in 2012
dollars).[3] The complex was located in the heart of New York City's
downtown financial district and contained 13.4 million square feet (1.24
million m2) of office space.[4][5] The Windows on the World restaurant
was located on the 106th and 107th floors of 1 World Trade Center (the
North Tower) while the Top of the World observation deck was located on
the 107th floor of 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower). Other World
Trade Center buildings included the Marriott World Trade Center; 4 World
Trade Center; 5 World Trade Center; 6 World Trade Center, which housed
the United States Customs. All of these buildings were built between
1975 and 1981. The final building constructed was 7 World Trade Center,
which was built in 1985. The second King Kong was filmed in 1976 with
some scenes mentioning and showing the World Trade Center. The World
Trade Center experienced a fire on February 13, 1975, and a bombing on
February 26, 1993. In 1998, the Port Authority decided to privatize the
World Trade Center, leasing the buildings to a private company to
manage, and awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.
On
the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew
two 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated
terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower (2)
collapsed, followed a half-hour later by the North Tower (1), with the
attacks on the World Trade Center resulting in 2,753 deaths.[6] 7 World
Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the other buildings,
although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they were
damaged beyond repair. The process of cleanup and recovery at the World
Trade Center site took eight months. The first new building at the site
was 7 World Trade Center, which opened in May 2006. The Lower Manhattan
Development Corporation (LMDC), established in November 2001 to oversee
the rebuilding process, organized competitions to select a site plan and
memorial design. Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was
selected as the master plan, which included the 1,776-foot (541 m) One
World Trade Center, three office towers along Church Street and a
memorial designed by Michael Arad.
The
September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th
or 9/11[nb 1]) were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon
the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on
September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the
Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The
hijackers intentionally crashed two planes, American Airlines Flight 11
and United Airlines Flight 175 into the Twin Towers of the World Trade
Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours.
Hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in
Arlington, Virginia. The fourth jet, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed
into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers attempted
to take control before it could reach the hijacker's intended target in
Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks.
Suspicion
quickly fell on al-Qaeda, and in 2004, the group's leader Osama bin
Laden, who had initially denied involvement, claimed responsibility for
the attacks.[1] Al-Qaeda and bin Laden cited U.S. support of Israel, the
presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq as
motives for the attacks. The United States responded to the attacks by
launching the War on Terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the
Taliban, which had harbored al-Qaeda. Many countries strengthened their
anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. In May
2011, after years at large, bin Laden was found and killed.
The
destruction of the twin towers caused serious damage to the economy of
Lower Manhattan and had a significant impact on global markets. Cleanup
of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, and the
Pentagon was repaired within a year. Numerous memorials were
constructed, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum
in New York, the Pentagon Memorial, and the Flight 93 National Memorial
in Pennsylvania. Adjacent to the National Memorial, the 1,776 feet (541
m) One World Trade Center is expected to be completed in 2013.
The
United States of America (also called the United States, the States,
the U.S., the USA, and America) is a federal constitutional republic
comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated
mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states
and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the
south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with
Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The
state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also
possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At
3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million
people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by
total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It
is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations,
the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[6] The U.S.
economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2010
GDP of $14.526 trillion (23% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of
global GDP at purchasing-power parity).[3][7]
Indigenous
peoples descended from forebears who migrated from Asia have inhabited
what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This
Native American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare
after European contact. The United States was founded by thirteen
British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776,
they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their
right to self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative
union. The rebellious states defeated the British Empire in the American
Revolution, the first successful colonial war of independence.[8] The
current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787;
its ratification the following year made the states part of a single
republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights,
comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental
civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
Through
the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes, acquired
the Louisiana territory from France, Florida from Spain, part of the
Oregon Country from the United Kingdom, Alta California and New Mexico
from Mexico, Alaska from Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and
the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and
industrial North over the expansion of the institution of slavery and
states' rights provoked the Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory
prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal
slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, its national economy was the
world's largest.[9] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed
the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II
as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole
superpower. The country accounts for 41% of global military
spending,[10] and it is a leading economic, political, and cultural
force in the world