Located on the northeastern coast of the United States, New York City (NYC) is a global city with great religious and cultural diversity. It consists of five boroughs, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, and is the most populous in the United States, having a population of approximately 8.4 million people. As a leader in the commercial, financial, fashion, education, art, entertainment, and media industries, NYC's influential networks hold sway over global markets, culture, and innovation. Despite its prominence in all of these areas, NYC remains multiracial, multicultural, and multireligious—a city of immigrants and migrants who live in approximately 500 distinct neighborhoods, comprising 200 separate ethnic groups attending several thousand places of worship.

The first inhabitants of the area that eventually became NYC were ...