Those who do not live on the east coast of The U.S. often are very surprised at the state of New York demographics.Contrary to people’s beliefs the vast majority of the New York is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. New York’s Adirondack Park is the largest state park in the United States. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is a popular honeymoon destination. The Hudson River flows south through the eastern part of the state dividing New Jersey and New York City and then flows to the Atlantic to the Atlantic Ocean.

New York State is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. There is a maritime border with Rhode Island east of bough of Long Island, and also with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west, and Quebec to the north.

New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City. Other borders New York’s borders are two Great Lakes Erie and Ontario, 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. Also Rhode Island and New York share a water border.

The terms Upstate and Downstate are used by New Yorkers to distinguish the counties north of suburban Westchester and Rockland counties from the New York City metropolitan area. Traditionally the areas of Upstate New York include the Adirondack and Catskill 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; along with the Mohawk, Delaware, Genesee, and Susquehanna Rivers. Central New York is Real Estate that is centered around Syracuse and Utica, regions west of Syracuse are Western New York. Rochester and Buffalo, Binghamton, Elmira and west along the Pennsylvania line is the “Southern Tier,” and “The North Country” is the region between the Adirondacks and the Canadian border, from the Watertown area to Plattsburgh.