Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "NYC" urban area encompasses NYC + Westchester + Long Island + Newark + parts of CT. Half of the population that lives/works in/around New York lives outside of the city proper.
NYC is not 13,318 sq mi which is what your talking about aka an area ~200 miles wide and bigger than the state of Maryland. By comparison DC is 61 square miles total your figure is like lumping DC, Baltimore, and Richmond VA into one metro area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore%E2%80%93Washington_m...