Central New York

Central New York is a beautiful area in the middle of New York State. It includes several cities and towns such as Auburn, Oneida, Syracuse, Fulton, and Oswego. These places are located in different counties like Cayuga County, Madison County, Onondaga County, and Oswego County.

The largest city in this area is Syracuse, which is the center of the Syracuse metropolitan area. Many people live in Central New York, and it covers a large area. This region is one of two areas called "Central New York."

Definitions

The New York State Department of Transportation talks about a large area named Central and Eastern New York. This area includes many counties, but it is not clear which ones are only Central New York.

Some counties, like Cortland and Tompkins, are sometimes thought of as part of another area called the Southern Tier. Tompkins County has a town named Ithaca near Cayuga Lake, which is in the Finger Lakes region. Oneida and Herkimer counties are often included in the Mohawk Valley, but they also overlap with Central New York. The counties that are always part of Central New York are Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego, and Madison Counties.

A book from 2023 says the name “central New York” can mean different things to different people. The book talks about the home of the Oneida people and nearby areas where the Onondaga people and Mohawk people live.

History

In early times, the Iroquois people kept other groups, called the Algonquian tribes, away from this area.

There was a special area called the Central New York Military Tract for soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. Many towns here have names from old stories because of this.

Higher education

Central New York has many important schools and universities. Well-known ones include Cornell University, Colgate University, Hamilton College, Le Moyne College, SUNY Cortland, SUNY ESF, SUNY Morrisville, SUNY Oswego, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse University, and Utica University. These schools help students learn and grow.

Media

Central New York has many big newspapers. Some of them are the Oneida Daily Dispatch, Syracuse Post-Standard, Auburn Citizen, Rome Daily Sentinel, Ithaca Journal, and Utica Observer-Dispatch.

People watch TV news from stations in Syracuse and Utica. Syracuse has stations for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS. Utica also has stations for NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox.

Speech patterns

Central New York is near the edge of a dialect area called the Inland North, which stretches west to Wisconsin. People here change some vowel sounds in a pattern called the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, but younger people use it less.

In Central New York, many people say words like elementary, documentary, and complimentary with extra emphasis on the -ary part. For example, elementary sounds like /ɛləˈmɛntˌɛri/ instead of /ɛləˈmɛntəri/ or /ɛləˈmɛntri/. This way of speaking is also found in other parts of Upstate New York.

People in Central New York usually call soft drinks soda, while in Western New York, they often say pop instead.