The definitive reference work on the demographic history of our nation's largest city. Two major elements--the text and the tables--provide a broad perspective of population development, viewing the statistical dimensions of three centuries of change from earliest settlement to 1970.

New York City has not only grown in size for three hundred years, but each phase of its history has brought new elements into its citizenry. Sociologically, New York has presented a pattern of invasion and succession on a mass scale. Basic source materials, selected from census reports, vital records, surveys, and contemporary observations, are analyzed largely in terms of the ethnic communities that have contributed to the city's growth and pattern of development--Dutch, English, German, Irish, Jewish, Italian, African American, and Puerto Rican.

Census figures, the framework for analysis, have been interpreted here in a manner that should enlighten and inform the casual student of New York's population history as well as provide valuable documentation to the serious researcher. A glossary, a map of the New York City area, notes, bibliography, and index accompany the text and tables.