New York

A Dutch trading post that England took by force and never entirely changed. New Netherland was founded for the fur trade in the 1620s, with New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan and Fort Orange at what is now Albany, and the Dutch West India Company recruited anyone who would come - a visiting priest in 1643 reported eighteen languages spoken in a town of a few hundred people. England seized it in 1664 without a shot, renamed it for the Duke of York, and kept the commercial character, the religious mixture and the Dutch land patents. The Zenger trial of 1735, in which a printer was acquitted of seditious libel because what he printed was true, is a foundation of American press freedom. The Iroquois held the interior and the colony's frontier policy revolved around them. The Erie Canal, opened in 1825, connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic and made New York City the dominant American port and financial centre, a position it has not lost. Ellis Island processed twelve million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. The state was the most populous until Californian growth passed it in 1963. Wall Street takes its name from the Dutch defensive wall. Albany is the capital, not New York City. The state's nickname, the Empire State, is of uncertain origin. Niagara Falls lies on its western border. The Adirondack Park is larger than several national parks combined. Its subway system is among the largest in the world by number of stations.

• Existed: 1624 CE – present
• Type: Entity
• Government: U.S. State
• Capital: Albany