NYC now 17 square miles smaller

NEW YORK The shrinkage is the outcome of an effort by the Department of City Planning to recalculate the city's land mass. The agency spent months analyzing thousands of digitized, high-resolution aerial photographs to calculate the new size.

Now, the agency says that the city's land now totals 304.8 square miles, instead of the 322 that has long been published in the city's official Green Book directory.

The recalculation is not expected to have any practical effect. Plus, city planners say the new measurement is only an estimate - subject to time.