Dutchess County, New York in the context of "Hyde Park (CDP), New York"

Downstate New York is a region that is generally described as consisting of the southeastern and more densely populated portion of the U.S. state of New York, in contrast to upstate New York, which comprises a larger geographic area with much sparser population distribution. While there is no widely agreed upon definition, the Downstate region is considered to consist of several subregions including New York City, Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley and may also be considered by residents to include the Mid-Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains areas. The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) defines its "Downstate Region" as including Dutchess and Orange counties, and the counties east and south of them in regions 8, 9 and 10 of the inset map. Both agencies and the general public use varying definitions of the boundary between Upstate and Downstate.

Despite being a small portion of the state's total land area, the Downstate region contains approximately two-thirds of New York's entire population. Its layout is largely urban and suburban, and constitutes New York State's portion of the New York metropolitan area, the world's largest urban landmass. New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is home to the United Nations headquarters, and has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. The Upstate New York region, conversely, which forms the vast majority of the state's land area, contains more undeveloped land, including forests and farmland.

Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland. Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States.

Hyde Park is home to the main campus of the Culinary Institute of America, a four-year college for culinary and baking and pastry arts, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, the first presidential library in the United States.

The geography of New York varies widely across the state. Most of New York is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. New York's Adirondack Park is larger than any U.S. National Park in the contiguous United States. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is a popular attraction. The Hudson River begins near Lake Tear of the Clouds and flows south through the eastern part of the state without draining lakes George or Champlain. Lake George empties at its north end into Lake Champlain, whose northern end extends into Canada, where it drains into the Richelieu River and then the St. Lawrence. Four of New York City's five boroughs are on the three islands at the mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island, Staten Island, and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island.

"Upstate" is a common term for New York counties north of suburban Westchester, Rockland and Dutchess counties. Upstate New York typically includes the Catskill Mountains or areas North of the Catskill Mountains, the Capital District, The Adirondacks, the Erie Canal, Lake Champlain, Otsego Lake, Oneida Lake; rivers such as the Delaware, Genesee, Mohawk, and Susquehanna. The highest elevation in New York is Mount Marcy of the Adirondack Mountains. New York is the 27th-largest state.

The Connecticut panhandle is the southwestern appendage of Connecticut, where it abuts New York State. It is contained entirely in Fairfield County and the Western Connecticut Planning Region, and includes all of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, and Darien, as well as parts of Norwalk and Wilton. It has some of the most expensive residential real estate in the United States.

The irregularity in the boundary is the result of territorial disputes in the late 17th century between the British colonies of New York and Connecticut. In an agreement on November 28, 1683, that established the New York–Connecticut border as 20 miles (32 km) east of the Hudson River, New York gave up its claim to this area of 61,660 acres (249.5 km) east of the Byram River, whose residents considered themselves part of Connecticut. In exchange, New York received an equivalent area consisting of a 1.81-mile-wide (2.91 km) strip of land known as the "Oblong" running northwards from Ridgefield, Connecticut to the Massachusetts border, alongside the New York counties of Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess. New York was also given undisputed claim to Rye, New York.

Poughkeepsie (/pəˈkɪpsi/ pə-KIP-see) is a city in and is the county seat of Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is surrounded by the Town of Poughkeepsie and had a population of 31,577 at the 2020 census, while the Kiryas Joel–Poughkeepsie–Newburgh metropolitan area has an estimated 712,000 residents. Poughkeepsie is in the Hudson Valley region, midway between the core of the New York Metro Area and the state capital of Albany. It is served by the nearby Hudson Valley Regional Airport and Stewart International Airport in Orange County, New York.

Poughkeepsie has been called "The Queen City of the Hudson". Originally part of New Netherland, it was settled in the 17th century by the Dutch and became New York State's second capital shortly after the American Revolution. It was chartered as a city in 1854. Major bridges in the city include the Walkway over the Hudson, a former railroad bridge which reopened as a public walkway in 2009; and the Mid-Hudson Bridge, a major thoroughfare built in 1930 that carries U.S. Route 44. The city of Poughkeepsie lies in New York's 18th congressional district.

Staatsburg is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Hyde Park, a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 703 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Kiryas Joel–Poughkeepsie–Newburgh, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

Staatsburg is located in the northwestern corner of Hyde Park and is bordered to the west by the Hudson River.

Haviland is a community and census-designated place (CDP) in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 4,174 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Kiryas Joel–Poughkeepsie–Newburgh, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

Haviland is in the southern portion of the town of Hyde Park. The Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site is located within the community.

The Harlem Line is an 82-mile (132 km) commuter rail line owned and operated by the Metro-North Railroad in the U.S. state of New York. It runs north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower 53 miles (85 km) from Grand Central Terminal to Southeast, in Putnam County, is electrified with a third rail and has at least two tracks. The section north of Southeast is a non-electrified single-track line served by diesel locomotives. Before the renaming of the line in 1983, it eventually became the Harlem Division of the New York Central Railroad. The diesel trains usually run as a shuttle on the northern end of the line, except for rush-hour express trains in the peak direction (two to Grand Central in the morning, two from Grand Central in the evening).

With 38 stations, the Harlem Line has the most of any Metro-North main line. Its northern terminal, Wassaic, is the northernmost station in the system. It is the only Metro-North line used exclusively by that carrier (no use by Amtrak, though CSX services freight customers as far north as Mount Vernon) and the only one that uses the entirety of existing track. It is colored blue on Metro-North timetables and system maps, and stations on the line have blue trim. The blue color-coding appears to have started with timetables issued by predecessor New York Central for the then-Harlem Division as far back as 1965.