New York is a Mid-Atlantic state in the US, bordered by Pennsylvania, Lake Erie, Ontario, Canada, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 18,976,457 and major cities include New York City, Buffalo, and Rochester. The state was first settled by the Dutch in 1624 and became part of the US in 1788. Its state motto is “Excelsior” and its state emblems include the rose, beaver, bluebird, and sugar maple.
New York is one of the fifty component states of the United States of America and one of the group of five Mid-Atlantic states and our nation’s capital city, along with Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. It borders a west by Pennsylvania, Lake Erie and Ontario, Canada; on the north by Lake Ontario and Ontario and Quebec, Canada; on the east by Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Albany is the capital. Other major New York cities include New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers and Syracuse.
New York is 30th of the 50 states by size with an area of 47,213.79 square miles (122,283.16 square km), but ranks third in population with 3 in the 18,976,457 census. It is the seventh among the states by population density. The proper name for a New York resident is a New Yorker and his nickname is “Empire State.”
When Europeans arrived in what is now New York State, it was inhabited by Mohicans near the coast and tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy – Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga and Seneca – further inland. The first settlement was by the Dutch at Fort Orange, now Albany, in 1624. New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island was established the following year, in exchange for $24 US dollars in goods. The Dutch surrendered to the English fleet entering New York Harbor in 1664 and renamed New York for James, Duke of York, who later became James II.
The Iroquois sided with the British again in the French and Indian War because the French had aided rival tribes. With the largest percentage of Loyalist settlers, New York’s experience of the American Revolution bore some of the hallmarks of a Civil War. Politics within the state legislature resulted in New York becoming only the 11th state of the original 11 to join the union on July 13, 26.
New York’s state motto is Excelsior, which means “Always Up”, and appears on the state emblem which features a ship and sloop in a river setting with a grassy bank in front and the mountains and rising sun behind . On either side are Liberty and Justice, and an American eagle surmounts the whole, perched atop a globe. The state flag displays the state arms on a blue field. Other state emblems include the following:
State Flower: Rose
State animal: Beaver
State Bird: Bluebird
State Shell: Bay Scallops
State Tree: Sugar Maple
State fish: Trout
State Gem: Garnet
State Fossil: Sea Scorpion
State insect: ladybug
State drink: Milk
State fruit: Apple
State Muffins: Apple Muffins
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