Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that

lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area.[1] Although the precise
boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Island, and most
definitions of the region also exclude all or part of Westchester and Rockland counties, which
are typically included in Downstate New York.[2][3] Major cities across Upstate New York
from east to west include Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.[3][4]

Upstate New York is divided into several subregions: the Hudson Valley, the lower part
of which is sometimes debated as to being upstate, the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley
region, Central New York, the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes region, Western New York,
and the North Country.[5]

Before the European colonization of the United States, Upstate New York was
populated by several Native American tribes. It was home to the Iroquois Confederacy, an
indigenous confederation of six tribes, known as the Six Nations.[6] Henry Hudson made the
first recorded European exploration of the region in 1609,[7] and the Dutch erected Fort
Orange (present-day Albany) in 1624, which was the first permanent European settlement in
New York.[8][9][10] The region saw many battles during the American Revolutionary War,
with the Iroquois split between supporters of the loyalists and supporters of the
revolutionaries. After the war ended, the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix kicked off a series of
treaties and purchases that saw the Iroquois cede the vast majority of their land in Upstate
New York to the newly formed United States.[11]

The 1825 opening of the Erie Canal across Upstate New York transformed the economy
of the region and the state. The canal greatly eased the movement of goods from across the
upper Midwest and the cities along the Great Lakes through Upstate New York and to the port
of New York City. As a result, Upstate New York became a hotbed for manufacturing during
the Second Industrial Revolution, giving birth to such firms as General Electric, IBM, Kodak,
and Xerox. The rapid industrialization led to a large influx of immigrants seeking jobs at
factories across the region. Since the mid-20th century, American de-industrialization has
contributed to economic and population decline,[12][13] and the region is largely considered
part of the Rust Belt.
 There are a wide variety of land uses in the region, including urban, suburban, forested
preserve, and rural landscapes. Due to its vast areas of rural land, Upstate also supports a
strong agricultural industry, and is notable for its dairy, maple syrup, and fruit production
(especially apples), as well as winemaking.[14] Upstate New York includes a number of
notable waterways, with the Susquehanna, Delaware, and Hudson Rivers all originating in the
region, and is bordered on its northern and western edges by the Saint Lawrence River and the
Great Lakes. As a result, the region is a significant source of hydroelectric power (going back
to the creation of the world's first hydroelectric dam by Nikola Tesla at Niagara Falls) and
drinking water (with multiple reservoirs serving New York City). Upstate New York is home
to numerous popular tourist and recreational destinations, including Niagara Falls, the
Adirondack and Catskill Mountains, the Thousand Islands, the National Baseball Hall of
Fame, and the Finger Lakes.

Definition

Upstate New York refers to some or all of the area north and west of New York City,
which is highlighted in red.

Bear Mountain Bridge crossing the Hudson River, as seen from Bear Mountain, which
connects northern Westchester and Rockland counties in southeastern Upstate New York.
There is no clear official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New
York. The most expansive definition of the Upstate New York region excludes only New
York City and Long Island, which are always considered to be part of Downstate New York;
this usage is common among New York City residents and significantly less farther north.[15]
This definition is used by the Department of Environmental Conservation.[16] A cheeky joke
among Manhattanites is that anything north of 14th Street is "upstate".[17][18]

Another usage locates the Upstate/Downstate boundary farther north, at the point where
New York City's suburbs segue into its exurbs, as the exurbs do not generally fall within the
Census Bureau-defined New York–Newark Urban Area. This latter boundary places most of
the Lower Hudson Valley, or Westchester and Rockland counties and about one-third of
Putnam County, Downstate, while putting the northwestern edge of Rockland County as well
as the northernmost quarter of Westchester County (including Peekskill) Upstate.[19]
Conversely, area residents often use Interstate 84 to delineate a boundary between Upstate
and Downstate New York.[citation needed]

Yet another usage follows the U.S. Census definition of the New York metropolitan
area prior to 2010, which includes all of included Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam
counties. This definition was used by the plaintiffs in the federal redistricting case Rodriguez
v. Pataki.[20]

In New York state law, the definition of the Upstate boundary also varies: while
Westchester is seemingly always considered Downstate under state law, some definitions
include Rockland and Putnam counties in the downstate region, and others also include
Orange and Dutchess counties; all of these counties are served by Metro-North Railroad lines.
[15][21] Ulster County, and, in the largest state-defined extent of Downstate, Columbia
County, are also sometimes included.[15] The division line between the United States District
Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States District Court for the
Northern District of New York places Sullivan County and Dutchess County in the Southern
District, and Ulster and Columbia counties in the Northern District.[22]

Residents of Upstate New York typically prefer to identify with subregions, such as the
Hudson Valley (Middle and Upper), the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley, the North
Country, Western New York or Central New York.

Within New York, surveys have had difficulty determining a consensus. In a 2016 poll
of New York voters in which respondents were asked to choose among four definitions of
where Upstate begins, three were about equally common, selected by between 25% and 30%
of respondents each: north of New York City, north of Westchester County, and north of
Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County. (The fourth, which also started north of Poughkeepsie but
excluded Buffalo as a unique region neither Upstate nor Downstate, drew only 7%.)[23] An
informal 2018 poll found the Hudson Valley region is the most heavily disputed area
regarding whether it is Upstate or Downstate.[24]

A number of businesses and institutions in the area have "upstate" as part of their name.
[25][26] Examples of this include the State University of New York Upstate Medical
University in Syracuse, the Upstate New York Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation serving 31
of New York's 62 counties,[27] and the VA Healthcare Network Upstate New York, which
includes all of New York State northward and westward from Kingston in Ulster County.[28]
Other organizations in New York with "upstate" in their name include the Upstate Collegiate
Athletic Association (now known as the Liberty League), the Upstate Correctional Facility,
the Upstate New York Club Hockey League, the Upstate New York Synod, and the Upstate
Citizens for Equality.

History

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Early history

A traditional Iroquois longhouse

Before the arrival of Europeans, the area was long inhabited by Iroquoian-speaking
people, mainly west of the Hudson River and around the Great Lakes and Algonquian-
speaking people, mainly east of the Hudson River. The conflict between the two peoples
continued through the period of early European colonization, and the French, Dutch and
English tended to ally with their trading partners among the indigenous peoples. The
Haudenosaunee or Iroquois confederacy of the Five (later Six) Nations was a powerful force
in its home territory.

The Five Nations' territory extended from the Mohawk River Valley through the
western part of the state and into current Pennsylvania. From this home base they also
controlled at various times large swaths of additional territory throughout what is now the
northeastern United States. The Guswhenta (Two Row Wampum Treaty), made with the
Dutch government in 1613, codified relations between the Haudenosaunee and European
colonizers, and formed the basis of subsequent treaties.

In the mid-17th century, during the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois were victorious and
dominated the tribes of Neutral Indians, Wenrohronon and the Erie Indians in western New
York. Survivors were mostly assimilated into the Seneca people of the Iroquois; some are
believed to have escaped to South Carolina, where they merged with other Indian tribes.
 The region was important from the first days of both French and Dutch colonization in
the seventeenth century. The New Netherland colony encompassed the Hudson Valley from
Manhattan island north to the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where Fort
Orange (later Albany) was established in 1624. The fort at Schenectady was built in 1661.
The upper Hudson Valley was the center of much of the colony's fur trade, which was highly
lucrative, serving a demand for furs in Europe.

North and west of New Netherland, the French established trading posts along the St.
Lawrence River and as far south as the shores of Onondaga Lake. They found both trading
and proselytizing difficult among the Haudenosaunee, as Samuel de Champlain had alienated
the Haudenosaunee during military forays from New France. In the 1640s, three French Jesuit
missionaries to New France—St. René Goupil, St. Isaac Jogues, and St. Jean de Lalande—
were killed near the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, which was located at the confluence of
the Schoharie and Mohawk rivers, where the modern hamlet of Auriesville was later
developed. They are considered to be the first three U.S. saints.

England seized New Netherland by force in 1664, renaming it New York. The Dutch
recaptured the colony nine years later, but ceded it to England under the Treaty of
Westminster of 1674.

In the eighteenth century, the British consolidated their hold on the region. William
Johnson, a Scottish trader, established an estate in the Mohawk Valley, living among the
Mohawk, learning their language, and forging an alliance with them. He was appointed as the
British Indian agent to the Iroquois. The British also encouraged settlement in the Mohawk
Valley by other Europeans, including German Palatines beginning in the 1720s.

In what became known as the Albany Congress in 1754, delegates from seven of the
thirteen British North American colonies met at Albany to pursue a treaty with the powerful
Mohawk. Benjamin Franklin, a Pennsylvania delegate, proposed a plan for uniting the seven
colonies that greatly exceeded the scope of the congress. The delegates spent most of their
time debating this Albany Plan of union, one of the first attempts to form a union of the
colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general
important purposes".[29] The delegates approved an amended version, but the colonies
rejected it.

To counter the French militarily, the British established forts along Lake Ontario and at
portages between the Mohawk Valley and the adjacent Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario
watersheds. The region became the area for many conflicts of the French and Indian War,
such as the Battle of Fort Oswego (1756) and the Siege of Fort William Henry (which was
later depicted in the work of James Fenimore Cooper), during the Seven Years' War.

The British conquered New France by 1760 with the fall of Quebec. France formally
ceded New France to the British in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. The same year, King George
III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which established the western and northern
boundary of the Province of New York at the limits of the Hudson, Mohawk and Delaware
River watersheds. The area between that boundary and the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence
River, including west of the Appalachian Mountains, was to be the "Indian Reserve."

American Revolution
Further information: New York and New Jersey campaign

Cherry Valley massacre

Between 1774 and 1783, deeply divided colonists waged civil war on each other
directly and by proxy, through attacks such as the Seneca-led Cherry Valley and the Mohawk-
led Cobleskill massacre. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition, a campaign by the Continental
Army ordered by General George Washington, drove thousands of the Haudenosaunee from
their villages, farms and lands in the region in an effort to both avenge and prevent such
attacks.