New Yorkistan

"New Yorkistan" is the title of the cover art for the December 10, 2001 edition of The New Yorker magazine.

Inspired by a conversation while driving through the Bronx,[1] it was created by Maira Kalman and Rick Meyerowitz[2][3] who did the actual painting, and is (according to the American Society of Magazine Editors) #14 on the list of the top 40 magazine covers of the past 40 years.

[4] It depicts the boroughs of New York City, as well as individual neighborhoods within the city, giving each a humorous name (a "funny mixture of Yiddish, Persian, and New Yorkisms"[5]) based on the history or geography of that area of the city, while playfully using names or suffixes common in the Middle East and Central Asia, such as "-stan".

The cover gained unexpected popularity, with the New Yorker making approximately $400,000 by February 2002 by selling copies of the picture as signed lithographs (all 750 copies of which sold out within 4 days) and unsigned posters.

[3][8] Susan Jarratt describes the cover as "lampooning both New Yorkers' city-bound geographic consciousness and a nationwide ignorance of the geography of Central Asia".