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Articles of Capitulation were drawn up, the Dutch West India Company's colors were struck on September 8, 1664, and the soldiers of the garrison marched to the East River for the trip home to the Netherlands. The date of 1664 appeared on New York City's corporate seal until 1975, when the date was changed to 1625 to reflect the year of Dutch incorporation as a city, and to incidentally allow New York to celebrate its 350th anniversary just 11 years after its 300th.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for "Old Village"), just south of the Narrows near South Beach, by a small group of Dutch Walloon and Huguenot families.

To the north of the island is Long Island Sound, which separates it from the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island. To the south are the Great South Bay, South Oyster Bay, and Jamaica Bay, which are actually lagoons, protected from the Atlantic Ocean by a string of narrow barrier islands, most notably Fire Island. The island separates into two forks at the eastern end, known as the North Fork and South Fork.

The island was laced with foot trails, one which followed the south side of the ridge near the course of present day Richmond Road and Amboy Road. The Lenape did not live in fixed encampments, but moved seasonally, using slash and burn agriculture. The staples of their diet included shellfish, including the oysters that are native to both Upper New York Bay and Lower New York Bay.

Starting in the early 1900s, New York City became known for its daring and impressive architecture, most notably the skyscrapers which transformed the skyline, from the Art Deco icon the Chrysler Building to the starkly modernist World Trade Center.

The Erie Canal proved to be a stroke of genius, as settlers now poured from New England, Eastern New York and Europe into the central and western part of the state. Others went on to Ohio and Michigan. The Canal was the first serious route for settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, which had previously been a geographic barrier. Now upstate farms and industries could easily ship their products to the large and growing market of New York City and beyond.

Fifth Avenue bisects Manhattan Island, dividing it into the East and West Sides. These east-west designations are used in horizontal (east-west) streets (e.g. East 27th Street, West Houston Street). The Manhattan numbering system extends into the western Bronx, using Jerome Avenue as the east-west divider.

Three of Suffolk County's ten townships - Brookhaven, Riverhead, and Southampton - are host to the 102,500 acre (415 km˛) State designated and protected Central Pine Barrens region. This remarkably undeveloped region overlies part of Long Island's federally designated Sole Source Aquifer which provides drinking water to nearly three million residents, and it contains terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of statewide and national significance, interconnected surface and ground waters, recreational areas, historic locales, farmlands, and residential communities.

The development of the Catskills was delayed due to conflicting land claims and lack of surveys. For more information, see The Hardenbergh Patent. Much of the higher land was never settled and cleared and is today part of the Catskill Mountain Forest Preserve.

The southern tip of New York State – New York City, its suburbs, and the southern portion of the Hudson Valley – can be considered to form the central core of a "megalopolis", a super-city stretching from the northern suburbs of Boston to the southern suburbs of Washington and therefore occasionally called BosWash.