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In the Sixteenth Century, the island was part of a larger area known as Lenapehoking that was inhabited by the Lenape, an Algonquin people also called the "Delaware". The band that occupied the southern part of the island was called the Raritans. To the Lenape, the island was called "Aquehonga Manacknong" and "Eghquaons" (Jackson, 1995).

British forces remained on Staten Island throughout the war. Although local sentiment was predominatly Loyalist, the islanders found the demands of supporting the troops to be onerous. Many buildings and churches were destroyed, and the military demand for resources resulted in an extensive deforestation of the island by the end of the war. The British again used the island as a staging ground for their final evacuation of New York City on December 5, 1783. After the war, the largest Loyalist landowners fled to Canada and their estates were subdivided and sold.

Manhattan is connected by bridges and tunnels to New Jersey to the west, and three New York City boroughs: the Bronx to the northeast and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough is the Staten Island Ferry, whose terminal is at Battery Park at its southern tip.

The official source of the Hudson is Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains. The Hudson is joined near Albany by the Mohawk River, its major tributary and flows south until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean between Manhattan Island and New Jersey, forming New York Harbor, at New York Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The Hudson as it passes through New York City is also known as the North River.

On March 12, 1791, Massachusetts agreed to sell its reverted pre-emptive right to lands west of the Genesee to Robert Morris for $333,333,33. The land was conveyed to Morris in five deeds on May 11, 1791. At that time, Morris was the richest man in America, as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a financier of the American Revolution.

The blackout of 1977 struck the City of New York on July 13, 1977, lasting for 25 hours and resulting in heavy looting and other unrest.

At the onset of the Revolutionary War, there lay a vast tract of land from the upper Mohawk River to Lake Erie, that was thinly occupied by the Iroquois and virtually unknown to the colonists. Since the colonial charters of both Massachusetts and New York granted unlimited westward expansion, the claim to this tract was disputed.

At the time of the arrival of the first Europeans, the area around what would later be called New York Bay was populated primarily by the Munsee branch of the Lenape, a people in the ethnic and linguistic Algonquian family, loosely connected by a common language.

The flood of immigration from Europe passed through Ellis Island (opened as an immigration facility in 1892), in New York Harbor, under the eye of the Statue of Liberty (1886).

The megalopolis, however, is not the only aspect of New York State. While best known for New York City's urban atmosphere, especially Manhattan's skyscrapers, by contrast the rest of the state is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. Few people know that New York's Adirondack State Park is larger than any National Park in the US.

New York is rich in nectar-producing plants and is a major honey-producing state. The honeybees are also used for pollination of fruits and vegetables. Most commercial beekeepers are migratory, taking their hives to southern states for the winter. Most cities have Farmers' markets which are well supplied by local truck farmers.

The Hudson is sometimes called a "drowned" river. The rising sea levels after the retreat of the Wisconsinan glaciation, the most recent ice age, have resulted in a marine incursion that drowned the coastal plain and brought salt water well above the mouth of the river. The deeply-eroded old riverbed beyond the current shoreline, Hudson Canyon, is a rich fishing area. The former riverbed is clearly delineated beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, extending to the edge of the continental shelf.

In 1609, Henry Hudson entered the harbor a commission from the Dutch East India Company in search of the Northwest Passage. Hudson may have interacted with Native Americans on Manhattan, and sailed up the river that now bears his name as far as Albany. Although Hudson did not find the passage he was seeking, his reports led to further commercial expeditions financed by Dutch East India Company with the intent of establishing fur trading factorijs in the area.