New York, NY

New York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States of America. With 62 counties, it is the country's third most populous state.

It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and shares a water border with Rhode Island as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

Its five largest cities are New York City (also the largest city in the United States), Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse. New York City is known for its history as a gateway for immigration to the United States and its status as a financial, cultural, transportation, and manufacturing center.

New York was inhabited by Algonquian, Iroquois, and Lenape indigenous people at the time Dutch and French nationals moved into the region in the very early 17th century.

First claimed by Henry Hudson in 1609, the region came to have Dutch forts in Fort Orange, near the site of the present-day capital of Albany in 1614 and was colonized by the Dutch in 1624, at both Albany and Manhattan; it later fell to British annexation in 1664.

About one third of all of the battles of the Revolutionary War took place in New York. The state ratified the United States Constitution in 1788, the 11th state to do so; its own constitution was enacted in 1777.

Geography

New York covers 54,475 square miles (141,089 km²). In size, New York ranks 27th out of the 50 states. The Great Appalachian Valley dominates eastern New York, while Lake Champlain is the chief northern feature of the valley, which also includes the Hudson River flowing southward to the Atlantic Ocean.

The rugged Adirondack Mountains, with vast tracts of wilderness, lie west of the valley. Most of the southern part of the state is on the Allegheny plateau, which rises from the southeast to the Catskill Mountains.

The western section of the state is drained by the Allegheny River and rivers of the Susquehanna and Delaware systems. The Delaware River Basin Compact, signed in 1961 by New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the federal government, regulates the utilization of water of the Delaware system. New York's borders touch (clockwise from the west) two Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario, which are connected by the Niagara River); the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada; Lake Champlain; three New England states (Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut); the Atlantic Ocean, and two Mid-Atlantic states (New Jersey and Pennsylvania).

In addition, Rhode Island shares a water border with New York. While the state is best known for New York City's urban atmosphere, especially Manhattan's skyscrapers, most of the state is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes.

New York's Adirondack Park is larger than any U.S. National Park outside of Alaska. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is a popular attraction. The Hudson River begins with Lake Tear of the Clouds and flows south through the eastern part of the state without draining Lakes George or Champlain.

Lake George empties at its north end into Lake Champlain, whose northern end extends into Canada, where it drains into the Richelieu and then the St Lawrence Rivers. Four of New York City's five boroughs are on the three islands at the mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island, Staten Island, and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island. "Upstate" is a common term for New York State counties north of suburban Westchester and Rockland counties.

Upstate New York typically includes the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes in the west; and Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Oneida Lake in the northeast; and rivers such as the Delaware, Genesee, Mohawk, and Susquehanna. The highest elevation in New York is Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks.

Climate

The climate of New York State is broadly representative of the humid continental type, which prevails in the northeastern United States, but its diversity is not usually encountered within an area of comparable size. Masses of cold, dry air frequently arrive from the northern interior of the continent. Prevailing winds from the south and southwest transport warm, humid air, which has been conditioned by the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent subtropical waters.

These two air masses provide the dominant continental characteristics of the climate. A third great air mass flows inland from the North Atlantic Ocean and produces cool, cloudy, and damp weather conditions. Nearly all storm and frontal systems moving eastward across the continent pass through or in close proximity to New York State.

Storm systems often move northward along the Atlantic coast and have an important influence on the weather and climate of Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley. Frequently, areas deep in the interior of the state feel the effects of such coastal storms. The winters are long and cold in the Plateau Divisions of the state. In the majority of winter seasons, a temperature of -25 °C or lower can be expected in the northern highlands (Northern Plateau) and -15 °C or colder in the southwestern and east-central highlands (Southern Plateau). The Adirondack region records from 35 to 45 days with below zero temperatures in normal to severe winters.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "New York".