New Yorkers generally use the term “New York City” when referring to their city, while tourists simply refer to “New York”. Here’s the difference!
New York means the State of New York
- When you talk about New York with New Yorkers, you will quickly realize that locals make a clear difference between New York and New York City. The name “New York” actually refers to the state of New York while “New York City” means the city of New York.
- In general, a New Yorker will therefore refer to “New York City” when speaking of the city of New York and will use “New York” to refer to the state.
- Europeans don’t care about this difference: when a European tourist says he’s “going on vacation to New York,” he very often means New York City. Same thing in newspapers, on television or even on my site: to put it simply, the word “New York” systematically designates the city of New York and we specify the word “State” only when we want to talk about the state itself. The Europeans have made their rule!
New York City refers to the city of New York
- The confusion between New York and New York City among foreigners is all the greater because New York City directly benefited from the famous “I Love NY” slogan, which can be seen on many T-shirts in gift shops. However, this logo was actually designed to promote New York State, as I explain in this article on the history of the “I Love New York” logo. To properly designate New York City, the slogan should have been completed and resulted in an “I Love NYC”!
- Another element that disturbs the lines: the city of New York is not the capital of the state of New York. The capital of New York State is the town of Albany and it has only 97,000 inhabitants! See my article explaining why New York is not the capital of New York State.
