New York is a state in the northeastern United States. It is sometimes called New York State when there is need to distinguish it from New York City. Because of the preponderance of the population concentrated in the southern portion around New York City, the state is often regionalized into Upstate and Downstate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2005, New York was the third largest state in population after California and Texas, with an estimated population of 19,254,630.

New York State's borders touch (clockwise from the northwest) two Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario, which are connected by the Niagara River); one former Great Lake (Lake Champlain); the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada; 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.

The first European settlers in the area now known as the State of New York were Dutch settlers in the colony known as New Amsterdam, beginning in 1613. These settlers were claiming this land as theirs, marginalizing the aboriginal inhabitants who had been living there since the Pleistocene epoch. The English traded the modern-day country of Suriname for New Amsterdam in 1664; they renamed it New York, after the Duke of York, the future King James II.

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