It shares borders with Hunters Point and Long Island City to the west, Astoria to the north, Woodside to the east and Maspeth to the south.

It was incorporated into Long Island City in 1870, and developed into a bedroom community after the Queensboro Bridge was completed in 1909.

Based on this calculation, as of 2018[update], Sunnyside and Woodside is considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

[13] Sunnyside's residents are also ethnically diverse and include people of Albanian, Algerian, Argentine, Armenian, Bangladeshi, Bolivian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Chinese, Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian, Egyptian, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indian, Iraqi, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lebanese, Mexican, Moroccan, Nepali, Nicaraguan, Pakistani, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Polish, Puerto Rican, Romanian, Russian, Salvadoran, Thai, Tibetan, Tunisian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Yemeni ancestry.

[9]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Sunnyside and Woodside is 0.0093 milligrams per cubic metre (9.3×10−9 oz/cu ft), higher than the city average.

[9]: 12 Ninety-two percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is higher than the city's average of 87%.

[26] Sunnyside and Woodside generally has a slightly higher ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018[update].

[27] Sunnyside and Woodside's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is less than the rest of New York City.

[10]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [9]: 6  Additionally, 86% of high school students in Sunnyside and Woodside graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.

[39] Notable celebrities include Johanna Magdalena Beyer, Perry Como, Nancy Walker, Benh Zeitlin, David Horowitz, Judy Holliday,[40] Joe Spinell, James Caan and Rudy Vallée;[41] artist Raphael Soyer, and writers and social activists such as Lewis Mumford and Suze Rotolo.

William Stuart-Houston, the nephew of Adolf Hitler, lived in Sunnyside for a brief period of time before leaving for the U.S. Navy in 1944.

[citation needed] Anthropologist, philosopher, and UC Berkeley professor Paul Rabinow grew up in the neighborhood.

[citation needed] In the years before World War II New York Giants star Hap Moran coached a youth football team, the Mustangs, in Sunnyside Park.

[43] Legendary jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke died at 43–30 46th Street in Sunnyside, and a plaque was erected in his honor by the Greater Astoria Historical Society.