New York State has distinct geography.
Most people think that heavily-developed urban areas dominate the state’s landscape. This doesn’t come as a surprise, considering the association comes from the state’s most famous city, New York. However, outside the cities, the state has a surprisingly idyllic landscape of forests, lakes, meadows, mountains, and even rivers.
The Allegheny Plateau makes up most of the southern part of the state and rises to merge with the Southern Tier of the Catskill Mountains. The Great Appalachian Valley makes up the state’s northeast, while the Hudson Valley makes up the state’s southeast. Finally, the rest of the state stands on the Marcellus Shale, which extends west to Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The state has various water bodies and island groups in its area.
These include the Hudson River, which begins in the Adirondack Mountains and flows through the eastern part of the state to empty into the Upper New York Bay. There’s also Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Niagara River, and the Saint Lawrence River.
As for islands, Manhattan Island makes up the most important island in the state, followed soon after by Staten Island and Long Island. In fact, these three islands share four of five boroughs that together form New York City. New York State also shares the Thousand Islands Archipelago with the Canadian province of Ontario, given the archipelago’s location on the Saint Lawrence River.
Mount Marcy makes up its highest point.
Located in New York State’s Essex County, Mount Marcy rises to an estimated height of 1.63 km. This height proved a factor in its Native American names, Tewawe’éstha, or “it pierces” in Mohawk, and Tahawus, or “cloud-piercer” in Algonquin. In contrast, its English name comes from William Marcy, who served as Governor of New York State between 1833 and 1838. He gained this honor from ordering the survey of the surrounding region, with a team of climbers reaching the mountain’s summit on August 1837.
The mountain also gained a place in American history when then-Vice President Teddy Roosevelt went hunting on its slopes. In the middle of the hunt, messages arrived informing him of US President William McKinley’s assassination. This forced Roosevelt to immediately return to Washington D.C., where he found himself sworn in as the new President of the United States.
New York State enjoys a mostly uniform climate.
Specifically, a humid continental climate, featuring warm summers as well as long and cold winters. In contrast, New York City makes up a small exception within the state, with a humid subtropical climate. This gives the city and its surroundings hot and humid summers as well as cold and wet winters. Scientists attribute this difference to the city’s closeness to the Atlantic Ocean, which increases the humidity in the air.
Temperatures across the state tend to average between 23 and 28 degrees Celsius in the summer, and between 15 and 25 degrees below zero Celsius in winter. On average, the state enjoys an estimated 1.5 meters of rain in a single year.
Climate change has become a major issue in the state.
Scientists have noted that New York State has seen average temperatures rise by 3 degrees over the last century. They’ve also predicted, based on current trends on global greenhouse gas emissions, that temperatures will rise by another nine degrees by 2080. They also expect that by that time, the state will have a humid subtropical climate. Rising sea levels from melting Arctic and Antarctic ice caused by global warming also prove a major concern.
Scientists predict that by 2080, sea levels in the state will rise by over a meter, with property damages in the billions of dollars. More than that, they expect that same rise in sea levels to completely submerge the Southampton Barrier Islands.
The state has a surprisingly diverse ecology.
New York State provides a home for over 20 bird and mammal species each, as well as various amphibian and reptile species. The mammals alone include bobcats, coyotes, groundhogs, moose, muskrats, raccoons, and even turkeys. Many different birds of prey also live in the state, such as bald eagles, harriers, and kestrels.
Waterfowl like mallards also live in the state, along with shorebirds like killdeers. It’s not just animals that live in the state either, but also many different kinds of plants. These include American ginseng, the common nettle, eastern poison ivy, giant hogweed, and water thyme.
It also has many different state parks.
In fact, New York State has the USA’s oldest state park, the Niagara Falls State Park, which was originally formed as the Niagara Reservation in 1885. The state also has the USA’s biggest state park, the Adirondack Park, with an area of over 24,000 km² making it as big as the state of Vermont. The park also features over 100 towns and villages in its area, home to a permanent population of an estimated 132,000 people.
This has earned it a reputation as the largest experiment in integrating human lifestyles with conservation efforts. Other parks in the state include Catskill Park and the Hither Hills State Park, the latter of which enjoys popularity among the sports fishing community.
Some of the USA’s most iconic memorials stand in the state.
The Statue of Liberty is the most iconic of them all, standing on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Designed and built in France, the USA received the statue as a gift in 1886 to commemorate 100 years of American independence. To this day, no other monument has become so iconic not just of the USA, but also of freedom and democracy. Other monuments in the state include the General Grant National Memorial, centered around the mausoleum of US President and former Union General Ulysses Grant.
The said mausoleum not only makes up the biggest out of any belonging to deceased US Presidents but also the biggest mausoleum in all of North America. There’s also the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, which preserves the former President’s estate in the town of Hyde Park.
Various Native American tribes lived in what would become New York State before the coming of the Europeans.
The Haudenosaunee and the Algonquians made up the dominant tribes, dividing most of the region between them. Other tribes included the Wampanoags and the Lenape, who similarly divided Long Island between them. The Mohicans also lived in the region, as well as the Iroquois, the Petun, the Susquehannocks, and the Erie.
Under the Wampanoag chief Metacomet, most of these united to try and expel the Europeans in King Philip’s War between 1675 and 1678. The Mohawk, in particular, proved especially opposed to the Europeans and even discriminated against any Native Americans who converted to Christianity. Metacomet’s death led to their defeat and their subsequent expulsion from the region.
The Native Americans fought against each other during the colonial period.
The Mohawks, in particular, fought wars of conquest against the Abenaki and the Mohicans. Similarly, the Susquehannocks conquered the Lenape in the 17th century. However, the Beaver Wars proved the bloodiest and longest war among the Native Americans, and which also involved the Europeans. The Iroquois fought against the other tribes, aiming to expel them from the region and monopolize the fur trade with the Europeans. They had the support of the Dutch, who similarly wanted to monopolize the fur trade in North America.
Other tribes enjoyed French support, but the Iroquois steadily dominated New England over the 17th century. A Dutch defeat to the British in Europe briefly weakened the Iroquois, only for the British to ally with them soon after. Eventually, the French defeat in the Seven Years War saw the end of French support for the other tribes and ensured Iroquois dominance in the region.
The Europeans began proper colonization of the region during the 16th century.
It started with the French in 1540, with French traders building an outpost on Castle Island. Ironically, they found themselves having to abandon the outpost after floods destroyed it in the following year. Although they built other outposts elsewhere, the original outpost stayed abandoned until 1614, when the Dutch rebuilt it as Fort Nassau. Fort Nassau lasted until 1623, enduring repeated floods until the Dutch abandoned it again for Fort Orange. Other outposts and settlements followed Fort Orange, such as Beverwijck, Fort Amsterdam, and Esopus.
Ironically, the Dutch originally did not come to North America to colonize the region, but to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. However, the lucrative North American fur trade forced the Dutch to change their position. As for the Northwest Passage, it proved impossible to pass through by ship until the 19th century and the development of early modern icebreaker technology.
The British gained control of the region in the 17th century.
It started with the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665 to 1667, with the British fighting to replace the Dutch as the leading European commercial and naval power. Ironically, Britain lost that war but proved able to keep their gains in North America at the peace table. This led them to organize the various settlements in the region into the Province of New York, marking the first use of its modern name.
