The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from France.
The sculpture, officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World, stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue, while Gustave Eiffel helped create its internal iron framework. Its copper exterior was assembled in sections and transported from France to New York.
The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886, in a ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. It depicts a robed woman holding a torch in her raised right hand and a tablet in her left. The tablet bears the date July 4, 1776, written as JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.
The gift symbolized the longstanding relationship between France and the United States, which had been crucial to the American victory in the Revolutionary War. The statue later became strongly associated with immigration, partly because arriving travelers could see it near the entrance to New York Harbor. It is a national monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.