Albany, New York

Where Albany is

Albany is the seat of Albany County, at 42.65°N, 73.76°W, on the west bank of the Hudson River about 150 miles north of New York Harbor. The river is tidal all the way to the federal dam at Troy, a few miles upstream, and ocean-going ships can reach the Port of Albany. The Mohawk River joins the Hudson just north of the city; the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, followed the Mohawk valley west and made Albany the gateway to the Great Lakes. The Massachusetts border is about 25 miles east and the Catskills and Adirondacks lie to the southwest and north. Albany is on Eastern Time.

How it became the capital

The Dutch built Fort Orange here in 1624, and the town received its English charter as Albany in 1686. During the Revolution the state government moved constantly: Kingston, Poughkeepsie, New York City and Albany all hosted the legislature. Albany was chosen as the permanent capital in 1797 because it was central to the settled parts of the state and secure from naval attack. It has been the capital ever since.

Population

Albany had 99,224 residents in 2020, sixth among New York cities after New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, Rochester and Syracuse. New York City, with 8,804,190, is nearly 90 times larger. The Albany–Schenectady–Troy metropolitan area, known as the Capital District, has about 900,000 people out of the state's 20,201,249.

The capitol

The New York State Capitol took 32 years to build, from 1867 to 1899, and cost more than the US Capitol. Four architects had a hand in it: Thomas Fuller, then Leopold Eidlitz and H. H. Richardson working together, and finally Isaac Perry. The result is a granite building that mixes Romanesque and Renaissance styles and has no dome. The Million Dollar Staircase inside carries hundreds of carved portraits. The capitol sits at the north end of Empire State Plaza, the modernist government complex built by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s and 1970s.

Distances to other cities

Montreal is about 220 miles north up Interstate 87.

Related maps

• New York map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
• New York county map · blank New York map · printable New York map.
• All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
• Northeast region · Middle Atlantic division · Eastern Time Zone.