We no longer check to see whether Telegraph.co.uk displays properly in Internet Explorer version 6 or earlier.

To see our content at its best we recommend upgrading if you wish to continue using IE or using another browser such as Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome.

With 8.4 million inhabitants packed into 305 square miles, New York is the most populous city in the United States. It is also the most ethnically diverse: 40 per cent of the present-day inhabitants of New York City were born outside the US.

Between 1990 and 2000, a million new immigrants arrived in New York City, most of them from south-east Asia and Latin America. More than half the people who now live in Little Italy in Lower Manhattan are Chinese.

It is estimated that 800 languages are now spoken in the city. This linguistic diversity has always been a feature of New York life. In 1643, New York was called New Amsterdam. Even in those days, the 500 residents spoke 18 different languages between them.

When European sea explorers first arrived in what is now New York, there were thousands of people already living there from the Algonquian, Iroquois and Lenape tribes.

The nickname Gotham for New York City long predates its use in the Batman comic strip in 1939. It was coined by the writer Washington Irving in his journal Salmagundi, which satirised New York life and politics.