The Catskill Park is in the Catskill Mountains in the U.S. state of New York. It consists of 700,000 acres of land inside a Blue Line in four counties: Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster. As of 2005, 287,500 acres (116,300 ha) or 41 percent of the land within, is owned by the state as part of the Forest Preserve; it is managed by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Another 5% is owned by New York City to protect four of the city's reservoirs in the region that lie partially within the park and their respective watersheds.
View to central Catskills from Twin Mountain
Sign at entry to Catskill Park near southern end, along NY 55 near Napanoch.
The Ashokan Reservoir as seen from Wittenberg Mountain.
North-South Lake in the Catskill Forest Preserve
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
Slide Mountain and nearby peaks as seen from Twin Mountain in the northern Catskills
Views of the Catskills from the Hudson like this led to the name "Blue Mountains" for a time.
Free-floating tubers on Esopus Creek
Kaaterskill Falls on Spruce Creek near Palenville, New York. One of the higher falls in New York. Two separate falls total 260 ft (79 m).