Question about cities in the United States?

Unbelievable x2

Because for most of the world, New York City is New York.

Oklahoma also has Tulsa, which many seem to think is the only major city in Oklahoma, and Kansas City is shared with Missouri, so you can’t really say Kansas, Kansas, because part of it is Kansas City, Missouri.

I couldn’t tell you why Oklahoma City isn’t just referred to as Oklahoma, Oklahoma or Iowa City isn’t Iowa, Iowa but Kansas City, Kansas isn’t the famous Kansas City. That Kansas City is in Missouri. and saying Kansas, Missouri would just be weird. Just as it would if we dropped the “City” in Virginia City, Nevada or Nevada City, California.

it’s so nice they named it twice.

Oklahoma City and Kansas City are the actual names of cities.

New York City doesn’t exist – the actual name of the city is just New York.

because it still makes sense to say New York, New York. In England there is a place called York. So saying New York to refer to both city and state still makes sense.

Kansas, Kansas doesn’t.

Because New York is considered a “Global City” or an “Alpha City”. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

These cities are considered major international economic hubs, and most writing style guides (Like APA) for journalistic purposes do not require the writer to list the state or country of those cities because they are so commonly known. For example, when writing an article about Los Angeles, there is no need to say “Los Angeles, CA” because it is an Alpha City, and everyone knows LA. But you would need to say “Tulsa, Oklahoma” because Tulsa is not a global/alpha city – if a writer just wrote Tulsa, certain audiences may not know what city is being referred to.

In short – People can get away with calling New York City “New York” because it’s an important city. You can’t do the same with Oklahoma City because, well, no one gives a shit about Oklahoma City. No offense.

Actually, I think @laureth may have used Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and hit it right on the head.

oof

As @laureth said, the full name is “New York.” People call it “New York City” to distinguish that they are talking about the city, not the whole state.

Just to confuse things more New York City is used synonomously with Manhattan, but NYC is actually made up of 5 boroughs, Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens.

Many say New York when they mean New York City, but we from New York generally respond to the sentence, “I live in New York,” with the question, “what part?” Meaning what part of the state.

Mostly, it is just what becomes common usage I think. New York is an important city because of it’s size and significance in other ways, so most peope can assume if you say New York you mean the city, but if you say Oklahoma a specific city does not come to mind. When I am in DC or NY and say I grew up in Washington, they assume Washington DC, but other parts of the country ask me to clarify Washington State or DC.

@JLeslie

Correcting a common mistake. The Borough of Staten Island is part of the city of New York.
The borough has the same geographic and political boundaries of Richmond County, which is one of 62 counties in the State of New York.

The name of the Borough of Richmond was changed during the Beame administration 1973 – 1977) due to the efforts and entreaties of Paul O’Dwyer who was the President of the City Council, the legislative branch of government in New York City during those years.

His motivation to make the change was strictly to embarrass the UK by changing the name from Richmond, a name of English origin to Staten Island, a name derived from the period when the area was called New Amsterdam and was part of the Dutch Empire.

O’Dwyer was born in County Mayo in Ireland and was a fervent supporter of the Republican cause devoted to the reunification of the six counties of Ulster (Northern Ireland) with the Republic of Ireland. In those days the passions between the two sides in Belfast Northern Ireland, the Catholics and the Protestants, were widespread and there was a great deal of internecine violence.

O’Dwyer was rumored to be a force behind shipping munitions to the Catholic cause in Northern Ireland and the renaming of Staten Island was just another shot at the British occupation of Northern Ireland,

SRM

@srmorgan Thanks for the history. Seems with your first sentence you were saying that I did not include Staten Island as NYC, but I had, that confused me. Maybe I misunderstood.

@JLeslie
My long-winded statement was meant to simply state that the Island called Staten Island WAS the Borough of Richmond until its name was changed to the Borough of Staten Island in the mid-70’s.

Staten Island is also county within the state of New York called Richmond County. That name was NOT changed.

This is analogous to the Borough of Brooklyn is also Kings County and the Borough of Manhattan is also New York County. The Bronx and Queens carry the name for Borough and County