New York City covers roughly 300 square miles (about 780–790 square kilometers) of land and is home to around 8.4–8.5 million people, making it the most densely populated major city in the United States.

Quick Scoop

Basic size in numbers

  • Land area: About 300–305 square miles (around 778–790 km²).
  • Broader metro area: Over 6,000 square miles for the core metro, and more than 13,000 square miles for the larger combined region.
  • Population: Roughly 8.4–8.5 million residents within the city limits as of the mid‑2020s.
  • Density: About 27,000–28,000 people per square mile on average, with Manhattan over 70,000 per square mile.

How that feels on the ground

Think of it this way: New York City isn’t huge in land compared to big, sprawling cities, but it packs an enormous number of people, buildings, and stories into a relatively compact footprint. A subway ride can take you from ultra‑dense skyscraper canyons in Manhattan to more spread‑out neighborhoods in Queens or Staten Island, all still inside the same city.

People often say NYC feels “bigger than the numbers,” because its cultural, economic, and social footprint stretches far beyond its physical borders.

City vs. metro: two views of “how big”

  • City proper : The five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island) are what most people mean when they say “New York City.” That’s the ~300 square miles and 8‑plus million people.
  • Metro region : If you include surrounding parts of New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the New York metropolitan area has tens of millions of people and spans thousands of square miles, reaching well beyond the skyline you see in photos.

Quick borough sense of scale

  • Manhattan: Only about 23 square miles, but incredibly dense and packed with landmarks like Times Square, Central Park, and Wall Street.
  • Brooklyn: Much larger in population and land than Manhattan, with diverse neighborhoods and a strong local identity.

Why it’s a “city beyond measure”

Numbers capture the physical size, but NYC’s “bigness” is also about:

  1. Cultural reach: It’s a global hub for finance, media, fashion, food, and the arts, influencing trends worldwide.
  1. Daily life intensity: From rush‑hour subway crowds to late‑night streets, the pace and density of experience make the city feel enormous in every sense.

TL;DR: New York City isn’t physically huge compared with many world cities, but its combination of around 300 square miles, over 8 million people, and outsized cultural impact makes it feel gigantic.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.