Two numbers released by the Census Bureau in the past month say almost everything there is to say about New York’s relationship to the rest of the world: It is that shining city on the hill.

Start with the latest estimate of the city’s population. More than 8.6 million people now live in the five boroughs. The increase is almost half a million since 2010, yielding an average annual gain that hasn’t been seen since the early years of the 20th century.

Dig a little deeper and it turns out the story is about immigrants. Lots of attention has been focused on the increase in migration to the city from elsewhere in the United States and on a slowdown in new arrivals from other countries. Those trends are real. Nevertheless, every one of the boroughs lost more people to other parts of the U.S. than moved in from other counties, according to an analysis from the Empire Center for Public Policy. Foreign immigration more than made up for that loss in Manhattan and Queens and reduced the migration deficit to a modest number in the other boroughs. Meanwhile, what is called the natural increase—births outnumbering deaths—led to big population gains. Immigrants get credit for that trend too, because they have more children per capita than native-born Americans.

Tourism tells the same story. In early 2015 I wrote that a strengthening dollar was sure to curtail the growth in overseas travel. Early last year NYC & Company predicted a decline in foreign visitors because of the fallout from President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions. We were both wrong. Last year the number of international tourists increased by 3.4%, to 13.1 million. Hotel occupancy and room rates rose—quite a feat with so many new hotels opening. International visitors just can’t stay away from the bright lights.

The tourism numbers were so impressive that Moody’s Investors Service took special note of it in its weekly credit update. Tourism generates $4.2 billion in city tax revenue, mostly from sales and hotel taxes, and accounts for 8% of the gross city product of almost $800 billion, Moody’s pointed out.

New Yorkers are sometimes unhappy about the consequences of these two numbers: a more crowded city, a major housing crunch and too much competition for restaurant reservations and entertainment and cultural events. They are also a major reason the city is prosperous.