Cities of North America
Great cities on every continent: where they are, how people live and get around, and what to see.
7 to explore
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Chicago
Chicago, in the state of Illinois, is the third-biggest city in the United States, with about 2.7 million people (2025). It grew fast beside Lake Michigan, rebuilt itself after the Great Fire of 1871 and became famous for its skyscrapers, railways, museums and music.
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles is the second-biggest city in the United States, spread across a wide plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1781 as a small farming village, it grew into a world center of movies and music. About 3.9 million people lived there in 2020.
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Mexico City
Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, sits 2,240 meters high in the Valley of Mexico. It was founded in 1521 on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that stood on an island in a lake. About 9.2 million people lived there in 2020, and more than 23 million in the wider metropolitan area.
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New York City
New York City sits where the Hudson River meets a great harbor on the Atlantic coast. It has been the largest city in the United States since 1790. About 8.8 million people lived in its five boroughs in 2020, among skyscrapers, bridges and parks.
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Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It stands where three rivers meet, beside the Ottawa River, which divides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It began as a lumber town called Bytown, became the capital in 1857, and had 1,017,449 people at the 2021 census.
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San Francisco
San Francisco sits on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay in California. Spanish settlers arrived in 1776, the Gold Rush that began in 1848 turned it into a booming port, and today it is famous for the Golden Gate Bridge, its cable cars, its steep hills and its summer fog.
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Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., is the capital of the United States, on the Potomac River. It was planned from scratch in the 1790s, with wide avenues, the U.S. Capitol, the White House and a long green park called the National Mall. About 690,000 people lived there in 2020.