The North Country of Upstate New York is the northernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. It is bordered by Lake Champlain to the east and further east to the adjacent state of Vermont and the New England region; the Adirondack Mountains / Adirondack Park and the Upper Capital District with the state capital of Albany to the south; the Mohawk Valley region of New York to the southwest; the Canadian-American international border (with the Province of Ontario in Canada) to the north; and Lake Ontario, (the eastern-most of the Great Lakes) and the Saint Lawrence River / Saint Lawrence Seaway, and beyond the waters again to Ontario / Canada to the west. A mostly rural forested area, the North Country includes seven counties (or 14, according to another group) of the 62 in New York state. Fort Drum, a United States Army base, is also located in the North Country region in Jefferson County, near Watertown, as is the adjacent Adirondack Park of 6.1 million acres, established 1892 as the oldest state park in the nation, and preserved / operated by the Adirondack Park Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. As of 2024, the population of the region was 420,311 (revised figure from the last 2020 United States census).
The term "North Country" was first widely popularized within New York by the 1900 novel Eben Holden by Irving Bacheller.
