Here’s a fun debate to ruin your next holiday dinner:

Where exactly is "Upstate New York"? - Wikipedia Thinks It Knows...

Spoiler: Nobody Knows.

Not your old college roommate from Queens who’s convinced anything north of the Bronx counts, and definitely not your friend who went to school in Albany and now claims they’re “from Upstate.”

The truth is, “Upstate New York” is less of a place and more of an attitude.

Drive far enough north on I-87 or west past the Catskills, and you’ll hit regions with their own identities.

The Adirondacks? Not Upstate.

Buffalo? Too west.

The Hudson Valley? Too much indoor plumbing.

By the time you try to pin it down, the whole idea of Upstate New York has vanished, like a mirage of Stewart’s Shops and Tim Hortons signs.

Let’s talk about the real issue here: people love to argue about what “counts.” as UPSTATE.

My coworkers in the Hudson Valley insist they’re not Upstate, but the second someone in Manhattan brings it up, they’ll jump at the chance to be part of the club

Don’t get me started on people who claim to live in "Central New York".

That’s not a region; that’s just Upstate with a PR team.

And then there’s the wild card: Western New York. If you mention Buffalo wings or Lake Erie, you’ll have half the state swearing it’s a separate world.

But somehow, it still gets lumped into the Upstate debate.

So, does Upstate New York even exist? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s just a social construct invented to confuse tourists, give us something to fight about,

Either way, let’s agree on one thing: nobody actually lives there—right?

@austincasey_ At this point I just like to upset people from WNY that are in denial…. #upstate#upstateny#newyork#upstatenewyork#uny#wny#cny#flx#nny#585#315#716#607#518♬ som original - moon 🌙