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. As of 2020, about 784,283 people lived in Central New York, spread across an area of 3,715 square miles (9,620 km²). This region is one of two areas called "Central New York," with the other being a bit further east.

Definitions

The New York State Department of Transportation talks about a big area called Central and Eastern New York. This area includes many counties, but it doesn’t clearly say which ones are only Central New York.

Some counties, like Cortland and Tompkins, are sometimes thought of as part of a different 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 their area also overlaps 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 focuses on 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 set aside for soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. Many towns here have names from ancient stories because of this.

Higher education

Central New York is home to many important schools and universities. Some of the 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 offer many opportunities for students to learn and grow.

Media

The Central New York region has several major newspapers, such as the Oneida Daily Dispatch, Syracuse Post-Standard, Auburn Citizen, Rome Daily Sentinel, Ithaca Journal, and Utica Observer-Dispatch.

The area gets its TV news from stations based 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 close to the eastern edge of a dialect area called the Inland North, which goes as far west as Wisconsin. People in this area change the way they say some vowel sounds, a pattern called the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, though younger people are using it less now.

In Central New York, many people say words like elementary, documentary, and complimentary a little differently, putting 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 use the word pop instead.