New York City Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers

Trivia quiz questions and answers about New York City

New York City Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
What is the most populous city in the United States?
A: New York City.

Where is New York City located?
A: At the southern tip of the state of New York.

The city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by what?
A: Urban landmass.

It’s one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated population of how many people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area?
A: 20,320,876, and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area.

A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural financial, and media capital of what?
A: The world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports.

The city's fast pace has inspired what term?
A: The term “New York minute”.

Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for what?
A: International diplomacy.

New York is situated on one of the worlds largest what?
A: Natural harbors.

New York City consists of how many boroughs?
A: Five, each of which is a separate county of the State of New York.

What are the names of the five boroughs?
A: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

When were they consolidated into a single city?
A: In 1898.

The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for what?
A: Legal immigration to the United States.

How many languages are spoken in New York?
A: As many as 800, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.

New York City is home to how many residents born outside the United States?
A: More than 3.2 million, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.

In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of how much?
A: US$1.73 trillion.

If greater New York City were a sovereign state, where would it rank for GDP in the world?
A: 12th.

New York is home to the highest number of “whom” of any city in the world?
A: Billionaires.

New York City traces its origins to what?
A: To a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.

What was the post named?
A: New Amsterdam.

The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to whom?
A: His brother, the Duke of York.

When did New York serve as the capital of the United States?
A: From 1785 until 1790.

It has been the country's largest city since when?
A: Since 1790.

The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of what?
A: The United States and its ideals of liberty and peace.

Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known; with the city having how many of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013?
A: Three.

How many tourists visited New York in 2017?
A: A record 62.8 million.

Several sources have ranked New York the most what?
A: The most photographed city in the world.

Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of what?
A: The Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.

The names of many of the city's landmarks, skyscrapers, and parks are what?
A: Known around the world.

Manhattan's real estate market is among the what?
A: The most expensive in the world.

New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of where?
A: Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city.

Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the what?
A: The largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations.

How many colleges and universities are located in New York City?
A: Over 120 including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world.

Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading what?
A: Financial center of the world.

The city is home to what two stock exchanges?
A: The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York, who would become what?
A: King James II of England.

During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a what?
A: A large ice sheet over 1,000 feet (300 m) in depth.

The erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and what?
A: Staten Island.

That action also left bedrock where?
A: At a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers.

In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by whom?
A: Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape.

When was the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European?
A: It was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown.

He claimed the area for France and named it what?
A: Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême).

A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of what?
A: The Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio (Saint Anthony's River).

Who is credited with the purchase of the island of Manhattan in 1626?
A: Peter Minuit.

In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered the New York Harbor while searching for what?
A: The Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company.

Hudson sailed roughly 150 miles (240 km) north, past the site of the present-day New York State capital city of Albany, in the belief that what?
A: It might be an oceanic tributary.

He made a ten-day exploration of the area and claimed the region for whom?
A: The Dutch East India Company.

In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called what?
A: Nieuw-Nederland (New Netherland).

Who was the first non-Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City?
A: It was Juan Rodriguez (transliterated to Dutch as Jan Rodrigues), a merchant from Santo Domingo.