With more than 8 million residents in 2009, New York City is by far the largest in the United States in terms of population. The Big Apple's extensive subway system connects four of its five boroughs, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects the fifth borough, Staten Island, to Brooklyn. New York City is home to more than 20,000 restaurants and world-renowned museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. The 843-acre Central Park in the middle of Manhattan draws 35 million visitors a year.
Tourism is a major industry in the second largest American metropolis, Los Angeles, California, home to nearly 4 million people. Los Angeles is the only North American city that has hosted the summer Olympic games twice. The west coast city is also the country's most important import and export port. There is no majority population in Los Angeles, where the population is more than 47 percent Hispanic. The city averages 325 sunny or partly sunny days a year. While the city had 3.8 million in population as of 2009, Los Angeles County is home to 10.3 million people.
Known to many as the "Windy City," Chicago, Illinois, is the third largest city in the United States with a population of nearly 2.9 million people. The Midwestern metropolis boasts the oldest public zoo in the country -- Lincoln Park Zoo -- and the Adler Planetarium, the first in the Western hemisphere. Chicago, home to the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw, is known for its public art, with 100 works in the downtown area alone.
The city of Houston in Texas is the fourth most populous in the country. Hispanics, the largest minority in Houston, account for one third of the city's 2.3 million residents, followed by African Americans, who account for 18 percent, while whites make up 42 percent of the city's population. Houston, which encompasses 634 square miles, boasts 50,632 acres of park space.
Two of the three "Charters of Freedom" -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- were drafted and signed in Philadelphia, the United States' fifth largest city, whose population was 1,526,066 in an updated 2010 census tally, according to the "Philadelphia Inquirer." The building where the documents were penned is known as Independence Hall and is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Founded by William Penn in 1682, Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love," is also home to the Liberty Bell.
Located in the Sonoran desert in Arizona, Phoenix is the sixth largest American city, with 1,445,632 residents. Phoenix's South Mountain Park and Preserve, which encompasses more than 16,500 acres, is the world's largest municipal park. According to the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau, between 13 and 15 million people visit Phoenix each year. Phoenix averages 310 sunny days a day; the average annual rainfall is 7.66 inches. The average high temperatures in Phoenix in June, July and August are over 100 degrees.
