Upstate New York in the context of "Fulton Chain of Lakes"

Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House, and the last to be neither a Democrat nor a Republican. A former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Fillmore was elected vice president in 1848, and succeeded to the presidency when Zachary Taylor died in 1850. Fillmore was instrumental in passing the Compromise of 1850, which led to a brief truce in the battle over the expansion of slavery.

Fillmore was born into poverty in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York. He had little formal schooling, but studied to become a lawyer. Fillmore became prominent in the Buffalo area as an attorney and politician, and was elected to the New York Assembly in 1828 and the House of Representatives in 1832. Fillmore initially belonged to the Anti-Masonic Party, but became a member of the Whig Party as it formed in the mid-1830s. He was a rival for the state party leadership with Thurlow Weed and his protégé William H. Seward. Throughout his career, Fillmore declared slavery evil but said it was beyond the federal government's power to end it. Conversely, Seward argued that the federal government had a role to play. Fillmore was an unsuccessful candidate for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives when the Whigs took control of the chamber in 1841, but was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Defeated in bids for the Whig nomination for vice president and for New York governor in 1844, Fillmore was elected Comptroller of New York in 1847, the first to hold that post by election.

New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by the New England states to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. New York is the fourth-most populous state in the United States, with nearly 20 million residents, and the 27th-largest state by area, with a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km).

New York has a varied geography. The southeastern part of the state, known as Downstate, encompasses New York City, the most populous city in the United States; Long Island, with approximately 40% of the state's population, the nation's most populous island; and the cities, suburbs, and wealthy enclaves of the lower Hudson Valley. These areas are the center of the expansive New York metropolitan area and account for approximately two-thirds of the state's population. The larger Upstate area spreads from the Great Lakes to Lake Champlain and includes the Adirondack Mountains and the Catskill Mountains (part of the wider Appalachian Mountains). The east–west Mohawk River Valley bisects the more mountainous regions of Upstate and flows into the north–south Hudson River valley near the state capital of Albany. Western New York, home to the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, is part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Central New York is anchored by the city of Syracuse; between the central and western parts of the state, New York is prominently featured by the Finger Lakes, a popular tourist destination. To the south, along the state border with Pennsylvania, the Southern Tier sits atop the Allegheny Plateau, representing some of the northernmost reaches of Appalachia.

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.

Taiga or tayga (/ˈtaɪɡə/ TY-gə; Russian: тайга́, IPA: [tɐjˈɡa]), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North America, it covers most of inland Canada, Alaska, and parts of the northern contiguous United States. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean (including much of Siberia), much of Norway and Estonia, some of the Scottish Highlands, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan (on the island of Hokkaido).

The principal tree species, depending on the length of the growing season and summer temperatures, vary across the world. The taiga of North America is mostly spruce; Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a mix of spruce, pines and birch; Russian taiga has spruces, pines and larches depending on the region; and the Eastern Siberian taiga is a vast larch forest.

The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the upper Great Lakes above Niagara Falls, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. The Erie Canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York state.

A canal from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes was first proposed in the 1780s, but a formal survey was not conducted until 1808. The New York State Legislature authorized construction in 1817. Political opponents of the canal (referencing its lead supporter New York Governor DeWitt Clinton) denigrated the project as "Clinton's Folly" and "Clinton's Big Ditch". Nonetheless, the canal saw quick success upon opening on October 26, 1825, with toll revenue covering the state's construction debt within the first year of operation. The westward connection gave New York City a strong advantage over all other US ports and brought major growth to canal cities such as Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.

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 Southern Tier is a geographic subregion of the broader upstate region of New York State, geographically situated along or very near the state border with Pennsylvania. Definitions of the region vary widely, but generally encompass counties surrounding the Binghamton, Elmira-Corning, and Jamestown metropolitan areas, along with the land of the Seneca Nation. This region is adjacent to the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania, and both these regions together are known as the Twin Tiers.

Geographically, most of the Southern Tier resides in the Allegheny Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains, with the eastern areas of the region nestled in the western portion of the Catskill Mountains. A longtime home of the Iroquois Confederacy, European settlers moved to the region after the American Revolutionary War. The fertile yet hilly land, combined with sweeping river valleys, led the region to support a combination of manufacturing industries (including large companies such as IBM and Corning Inc.) and farming, but with less development compared to neighboring subregions of upstate. Since the 1950s, the area is often considered to be a part of the Rust Belt, as manufacturing jobs have left the region.

The University of Rochester is a private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full-time employees, the university is the largest private employer in Upstate New York and the seventh-largest in all of New York State.

With over 12,000 students, the university offers 160 undergraduate and 30 graduate programs across seven schools spread throughout five campuses. The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is the largest school, and it includes the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Eastman School of Music, founded by and named after George Eastman, is located in Downtown Rochester.