Portal:New York (state)

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The New York State portal

The Coat of arms of the state of New York
Location of the state of New York in the United States

New York, sometimes called New York State, is a state in the Northeastern United States. One of the Mid-Atlantic states, it borders the Atlantic Ocean, New England, Canada and the Great Lakes. With almost 19.6 million residents, it is the fourth-most populous state in the United States and eighth-most densely populated as of 2023. New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state by area, with a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km2).

New York has a varied geography. The southeastern part of the state, known as Downstate, encompasses New York City, the most populous city in the United States, with over twice the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city; Long Island, the nation's most populous island; and the suburbs and wealthy enclaves of the lower Hudson Valley. These areas are the center of the New York metropolitan area, a sprawling urban landmass, and account for approximately two-thirds of the state's population. The much larger Upstate area spreads from the Great Lakes to Lake Champlain, and includes the Adirondack Mountains and the Catskill Mountains (part of the wider Appalachian Mountains). The east–west Mohawk River Valley bisects the more mountainous regions of Upstate, and flows into the north–south Hudson River valley near the state capital of Albany. Western New York, home to the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, is part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Central New York is anchored by the city of Syracuse; between the central and western parts of the state, New York is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular tourist destination. To the south, along the state border with Pennsylvania, the Southern Tier sits atop the Allegheny Plateau, representing the northernmost reaches of Appalachia.

New York was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that went on to form the United States. The area of present-day New York had been inhabited by tribes of the Algonquians and the Iroquois Confederacy Native Americans for several thousand years by the time the earliest Europeans arrived. Stemming from Henry Hudson's expedition in 1609, the Dutch established the multiethnic colony of New Netherland in 1621. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664, renaming it the Province of New York. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists eventually succeeded in establishing independence, and the state ratified the then new United States Constitution in 1788. From the early 19th century, New York's development of its interior, beginning with the construction of the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the United States. The state built its political, cultural, and economic ascendancy over the next century, earning it the nickname of the "Empire State." Although deindustrialization eroded a portion of the state's economy in the second half of the 20th century, New York in the 21st century continues to be considered as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability. (Full article...)

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The Battle of Long Island, a 21st-century portrait of the battle

The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, was an action of the American Revolutionary War fought on August 27, 1776, at and near the western edge of Long Island in present-day Brooklyn. The British defeated the Continental Army and gained access to the strategically important Port of New York, which they held for the rest of the war. It was the first major battle to take place after the United States declared its independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. It was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War in terms of both troop deployment and combat.

After defeating the British in the siege of Boston on March 17, Continental Army commander-in-chief George Washington relocated his army to defend the port city of New York, located at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Washington understood that the city's harbor would provide an excellent base for the Royal Navy, so he established defenses there and waited for the British to attack. In July, the British, under the command of General William Howe, landed a few miles across the harbor on the sparsely populated Staten Island, where they were reinforced by a fleet of ships in Lower New York Bay over the next month and a half, bringing their total force to 32,000 troops. Washington knew the difficulty in holding the city with the British fleet in control of the entrance to the harbor at the Narrows, and accordingly moved the bulk of his forces to Manhattan, believing that it would be the first target. (Full article...)

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Cornell University is a private Ivy League land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. The university was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational and nonsectarian institution. As of fall 2023, the student body included over 16,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students from all 50 U.S. states and 130 countries.

The university is organized into eight undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions on its main Ithaca campus. Each college and academic division has near autonomy in defining its respective admission standards and academic curriculum. In addition to its primary campus in Ithaca, the university administers three satellite campuses, including two in New York City and one in the Education City region of Qatar. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various New York state-related articles on Wikipedia.

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A portrait of Mark Twain.
In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?

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The trail by the Commercial Avenue parking lot

The Hudson Valley Rail Trail is a paved 4-mile (6.4 km) east–west rail trail in the town of Lloyd in Ulster County, New York, stretching from the Hudson River through the hamlet of Highland. The trail was originally part of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route, a rail corridor that crossed the Hudson via the Poughkeepsie Bridge. Controlled by a variety of railroads throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the bridge was damaged and became unusable after a May 8, 1974 fire. By the 1980s, the corridor's then-owner, Conrail, had routed all rail traffic in the region north through Selkirk Yard and was eager to relieve itself of the bridge and adjoining rights-of-way. In 1984, it sold the entire property for one dollar to a felon who did not maintain it or pay taxes on it. The section of the corridor west of the Hudson was seized by Ulster County in 1991 and transferred to the town of Lloyd.

During the 1990s, a broadband utility seeking to lay fiber optic cable paid the town to pass through the former corridor. The town used part of its payment to pave the route and open it as a public rail trail in 1997. The creation of the trail was supported by a local Rotary club, which built a pavilion along the trail. The pavilion includes a donated antique caboose. While the trail originally ended at Route 4455, it was extended eastward between 2009 and 2010, intersecting Route 9W and continuing to the Poughkeepsie Bridge. The extension was paid for by stimulus funding. (Full article...)

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A New York City Police Department boat.
A New York City Police Department boat.
Credit: Uris

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) was established in 1845 and is currently the largest police force in North America, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City. The NYPD is considered to be one of the first "modern" style police departments in the United States along with the Boston Police Department.

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A depiction of the Catskill Mountain House in 1856
A depiction of the Catskill Mountain House in 1856

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An engraving of Francis Marion McDowell
An engraving of Francis Marion McDowell

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View of Troy (specifically Lansingburgh) from Oakwood Cemetery
View of Troy (specifically Lansingburgh) from Oakwood Cemetery
Credit: UpstateNYer

Troy is a city on the east bank of the Hudson River located a few miles north of the capital, Albany. Settled in 1707, Troy was incorporated as a village in 1787, as a town in 1791, and finally as a city in 1816. This photo is of Lansingburgh, an area of North Troy, which was founded as a separate town, but incorporated into the city of Troy in 1900. Troy is known as the "Collar City" for being a manufacturing center for shirts, shirtwaists, collars, and cuffs in the late 1800s. This photo is taken from Oakwood Cemetery, burial place of Sam Wilson, the origin of Uncle Sam.

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State facts

  • Total area: 54,555 mi2
    • Land: 47,190 mi2
    • Water: 7,365 mi2
  • Highest elevation: 5,344 ft (Mount Marcy)
  • Population 19,745,289 (2016 est)
  • Admission to the Union: July 26, 1788 (11th)

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