In Wisconsin, the biggest population center (the Milwaukee area) is in the southeastern corner of the state, and most of the cities of significant size are in the southern two-thirds of the state.
Having grown up in Green Bay (which isn’t really a large city in its own right), everything north of Green Bay (an area that is fairly heavily forested in parts, and has lots of small lakes, resorts, etc.) was considered to be “up North” (or, as the locals pronounce it, “UPnorth”). It sometimes seems like everyone has a cabin “up North”, and that’s where they go every weekend in the summer (and probably also for deer hunting in the fall).
Both Massachusetts and Maryland refer to their ‘western’ parts which are sparsely populated. I’ve heard people refer to Western Mass as ‘off the end of the earth’, and Western Maryland was associated with Appalachia and hillbillies when I grew up there. Rhode Island is barely perceptible but still has South County, which is not a county at all but merely the southern portion of the state on the mainland. Newport is a tiny but somewhat separate region of the state, and the East Shore is the narrow strip of land on the east side of Naragansett Bay. However we are so small that most people are familiar with the names and locations of all 39 towns and cities.
I hate to be that guy who is homesick for upstate NY and who posts ad nauseum whenever the topic comes up but did you know that the Southern Tier is technically in the Appalachian Regional Commission. Now granted there are a lot of geological and economic similarities between the Southern Tier and Appalachia but if you polled people the closest place you’d find people in the majority who’d say they were in Appalachia would be in southern Pennsylvania.
Now re: economic similarities. In the early 2000s I went to a party in Chatanooga TN and noticed the empty brick factories and noticed the similarities between it and Jamestown NY. Then I saw other places with similar empty brick buildings. Only later did I read about the Appalachian Regional Commission and think “hmm, maybe they do have a point about the former mid-scale valley based industrialism contrasted with upland poverty shared between western NY and southern Appalachia.”
I have read each and every one of the replys to my question here and I truly thank you all for doing your very best to explain it to me. However, I must admit, it’s all greek to me. I’m still just as confused. I have read all the replys explaining the reason for the term “Upstate” New York is because of all the different regions, and that New York has upper regions and lower regions and northern regions and southern regions and east and west and ect. ect. ect…well, so does Texas, and I have never, ever, heard anyone say “Upstate” Texas.
But, no need to further explain. I guess I’ll just chalk it up as one of those “mysteries” in life that I will never know the answer to, lol!
Have a grrrreeeeat night folks!
Imagine if 70% of the population of the state of Texas lives in a massive city that’s also called “Texas”, located off in a far corner of the state; let’s say roughly where Harlingen is. Imagine that the few other large cities in Texas are about the size of El Paso, if not much smaller. You’re sitting at a blackjack table in Las Vegas, you meet someone from … oh, Syracuse, New York, and they ask you where you’re from.
“I’m from Texas!”
Nope. They’ll assume you’re from the city of Texas, and ask about living in a high-rise apartment building, taking the subway to work, why you don’t have a real Texas accent, and so on.
“I’m from Arlen, Texas!”
Nope. They hear “Texas”, and just assume you live in a suburb of the Big Longhorn, Texas Texas. They’ll tell you that they’re visiting Texas next month, and ask your recommendation for the best place to get real Texas-style pizza, or where to get cheap tickets to an Austinway show.
“I’m from Arlen. It’s a small city in upstate Texas.”
Now you’re getting somewhere. They know you’re in the state of Texas, but you’re not near Texas, Texas.
You then ask them about how expensive it must be to live in New York, and all the crime and crowds, but how wonderful it must be to have all those great museums and theaters right nearby. They facepalm.
The regions in upstate Texas are quite diverse. There’s the deserts of the western part of the state, the rolling hills west of Austin, the pine forests of the eastern part of the state, and so on. Amongst themselves, “upstate Texas” is too broad of a term to describe where they live, so they’ll use terms that describe the region instead; West Texas, Hill Country, East Texas, the Panhandle, etc. However, to the urban sophisticates of Texas, Texas, everything north of South Padre is all “upstate Texas”, and everybody that lives there are a bunch of farmers and hicks.
When you hear the term “Upstate” alone, without it being followed by “New York”, and it’s from a NYC-based media outlet, it generally means an area that is within a 60 to 90 minute drive of New York City, but a bit beyond Westchester County. This includes Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Middletown, New Paltz, and possibly The Catskills.
When you hear the term “Upstate New York”, this generally means the broader area in New York State that are not part of the New York City metropolitan area or media market, and also beyond the northern exurbs when “Upstate” is mentioned alone. This includes the Albany, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo metro areas, the Finger Lakes and Adirondacks region, the Southern Tier, and so on.
Amongst themselves, residents of Upstate New York will usually refer to their region in the state. This is where it can get a bit confusing.
Western New York includes the Buffalo and Rochester metropolitan areas. However, Buffalonans don’t consider Rochester as part of Western New York. Buffalo is culturally aligned with the blue-collar Midwest, while Rochester is solidly white-collar middle/upper-middle class Northeastern; it feels more like Connecticut. If a place name seems about as hard to pronounce as “Eyjafjallajökull”, it’s probably near Buffalo. If a place name is pronounced much differently than it’s spelled, it’ll be near Rochester.
Central New York includes the Syracuse metropolitan area. If a city or town is named after some place or person in classical antiquity, it’s probably in or near Central New York. You’ll also see more businesses and institutions in CNY named “Upstate [something]” than in other parts of Upstate.
The Finger Lakes region includes Ithaca, Watkins Glen, Canandaigua, and so on. Buffalonians will also lump Rochester in there.
The Southern Tier or Twin Tiers includes the area around Binghamton, Elmira, and Corning. Culturally, the Southern Tier is part of Appalachia; the cities and towns feel like they’re in Pennsylvania, although Corning is quite well off. However, when someone from Buffalo or Rochester refers to the “Southern Tier”, they’re talking about the Chautauqua/Cattaraugus/Allegheny County areas – Jamestown, Olean, and thereabouts – even though it’s lumped into “Western New York” among Upstate New Yorkers from outside Western New York.
The Capital Region is the area around Albany. If a town, village, or some natural feature has an odd Dutch name, it’s probably in the Capital Region.
Elmwood, Thank you very much for going above and beyond to clarify the term “Upstate” for me. You have been a great help.
I now understand how the term came to be. However, the blackjack table scenario would have been different for me. Here is my take…
Stranger: Where are you from?
Me: Im from Arlen Texas, its about 44 miles east of Texas City.
end of conversation with no assumptions.
OR (my take on how to keep it simple)
Me: Where are you from?
Stranger: Im from Syracuse New York, its about 250 miles north west of New York City.
end of conversation with no assumptions.
Candyj, it might be good to acquaint yourself with the “preview” function. Use it before posting a message using “submit” and things will be a little clearer to all of us, including you.
I was going to say “wait…what?” but then I found this Wikipedia article. I was born and raised in Chicago and currently live here, and I would never refer to places like Rockford and DeKalb as “downstate,” nor do I ever recall anyone using it in such a way. To me, downstate is, at its most generous definition, south of I-80, but much of that is still “Chicagoland” to me. You’d have to get somewhere south of Kankakee before I start calling it “downstate.” And stuff like Quad Cities isn’t “downstate” to me, either. For me, it’s more-or-less the southern half of Illinois. Looking around the net, it seems it’s a contentious subject, though.
The last definition here (“south of Bloomington”) is probably the one most familiar to me.
I hate when a thread I think we “just” did turns out to be about a year and a half old. Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ up the NY thruway…
Anyway: Do states other than New York have an “Upstate”?
My point there too was that I’ve never had trouble being (generally) understood when I say we moved out of the city to downstate New York. Everyone knows we’re still within arms reach of the city, have more trees and less mass transit (but have commuter lines and buses in), but not so far as to be within Albany or some other upstate city’s orbit.