Developed along the Hudson River, it is the 9th–most populous incorporated place in New York State. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enumerated at the 2020 United States Census, its highest decennial count ever. It is classified as an inner suburb of New York City, located directly to the north of the Bronx and approximately 2.4 miles (4 km) north of Marble Hill, Manhattan, the northernmost point in Manhattan.

Yonkers’s downtown is centered on a plaza known as Getty Square, where the municipal government is located. The downtown area also houses significant local businesses and nonprofit organizations. It serves as a major retail hub for Yonkers and the northwest Bronx.

The city is home to several attractions, including access to the Hudson River; Tibbetts Brook Park, with its public pool with slides and lazy river and two-mile walking loop; Untermyer Park; the Hudson River Museum; the Saw Mill River daylighting, wherein a parking lot was removed to uncover the Nepperkamack (Saw Mill River); the Science Barge; and Sherwood House. Yonkers Raceway, a harness racing track, renovated its grounds and clubhouse, and added legalized video slot machine gambling in 2006 to become a “racino” named Empire City. In more recent years, Yonkers has undergone progressive gentrification.

Major shopping areas are located in Getty Square, on South Broadway, at the Cross County Shopping Center and Westchester’s Ridge Hill, and along Central Park Avenue, informally called “Central Avenue” by area residents, a name it takes officially a few miles north in White Plains. Yonkers is considered a City of Seven Hills (its hills including Park, Nodine, Ridge, Cross, Locust, Glen, and Church Hills).