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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 also the site of the only extra-territorial enclave within the boundaries of the USA, the United Nations compound on Manhattan's East River.

New York was heavily glaciated in the ice age leaving much of the state with deep, fertile, though somewhat rocky soils. Row crops, including hay, corn (also known as maize), wheat, oats, barley, and soybeans, are grown. Particularly in the western part of the state, sweet corn, peas, carrots, squash, cucumbers and other vegetables are grown.

Besides the many private colleges and universities in the state, New York, like many other states, operates its own system of institutions of higher learning known as the State University of New York System (SUNY). New York City operates the City University of New York (CUNY) in conjunction with the state

The Hudson and Mohawk valleys are known for pumpkins and blueberries. The glaciers also left numerous swampy areas, which have been drained for the rich humus soils called muckland which is mostly used for onions, potatoes, celery and other vegetables. Dairy farms are present throughout much of the state. Cheese is a major product, often produced by Amish or Mennonite farm cheeseries.

Moreover, the Dutch themselves began manufacturing their own wampum with superior tools in order to further dominate the trading network among themselves and the Natives (a practice undertaken by the settlers in New England as well). As a result of this increase, beavers were largely trapped out in the Five Boroughs within two decades, leaving the Lenape largely dependent on the Dutch completely. As a result, the Native population declined drastically throughout the 17th century through a combination of disease, starvation, and outward migration.

In the 1800s these social antipodes could be found in the contrast between rich commercial stretches of Broadway and residential stretches moving with fashion, from Lafayette Street (1820s) and Washington Square and Gramercy Park (1830s), to take up even more extravagant residence on Fifth Avenue— and the almost unbelievably squalid enclave of Five Points (abject poverty later to occupy the Lower East Side).

The Erie Canal, though no longer so important a trade route (it is supplanted by railroads and highways) still defines the central commerce belt of New York State. The port city of Buffalo, Lockport, where the canal crossed a great limestone ridge, mill-town Rochester on the Genessee, and many smaller cities owe their growth, perhaps even their existence, to the Erie. Connecting canals were also built to Lake Ontario and the larger Finger Lakes.

The Lenape called the region Scheyischbi, or "the place bordering the ocean", and perhaps Lenapehoking, meaning "place where the Lenape dwell," although there is not universal agreement among scholars regarding this. The Lenape hunted, fished, and gathered roughly 150 species of edible wild plants, as well as using slash and burn agriculture, with the women sowing such crops as maize, sunflowers, and squash. The harbor and rivers also provided for rich fishing, especially of oyster and striped bass.

The Exchange was closed shortly after the beginning of World War I (July 1914), but it was re-opened on November 28 of that year in order to help the war effort by trading bonds.

Culturally New York became a truly international city, rather than a great American city, with the influx of intellectual, musical and artistic European refugees that started in the late 1930s. After the war New York inherited the role of Paris as center of the art world with Abstract Expressionism, and became a rival to London as an art market. However, the city lost two baseball teams to California, the Dodgers and the Giants, in the late 1950s. They were replaced by the Mets.