The Hackensack River is a river, approximately 45 miles (72 km) long, in the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, emptying into Newark Bay, a back chamber of New York Harbor. The watershed of the river includes part of the suburban area outside New York City just west of the lower Hudson River, which it roughly parallels, separated from it by the New Jersey Palisades. It also flows through and drains the New Jersey Meadowlands. The lower river, which is navigable as far as the city of Hackensack, is heavily industrialized and forms a commercial extension of Newark Bay.
A view of the Hackensack River taken from the shore in Teaneck at low tide
Separating Hudson (foreground) and Bergen Counties
The Meadowlands Sports Complex was built near the Hackensack River in the 1970s. Seen in the distance are the Hudson River and New York City.
Bergen Generating Station on Overpeck Creek in Ridgefield
New Jersey is a state situated within both the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is the most densely populated of all 50 U.S. states, and is situated at the center of the Northeast megalopolis. New Jersey is bordered on its north and east by New York state; on its east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on its west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on its southwest by Delaware Bay and Delaware. At 7,354 square miles (19,050 km2), New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in land area, but with close to 9.3 million residents as of the 2020 United States census, its highest decennial count ever, it ranks 11th in population. The state capital is Trenton, and the state's most populous city is Newark. New Jersey is the only U.S. state in which every county is deemed urban by the U.S. Census Bureau with 13 counties included in the New York metropolitan area, seven counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and Warren County part of the heavily industrialized Lehigh Valley metropolitan area.
Washington Crossing the Delaware, an 1851 portrait by Emanuel Leutze depicting Washington's covert crossing the Delaware River from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Mercer County on December 25, 1776, prior to the Battle of Trenton
Washington Rallying the Americans at the Battle of Princeton, a portrait by William Ranney depicting George Washington rallying Continental Army troops at the Battle of Princeton in January 1777
Sunrise on the Jersey Shore at Spring Lake in Monmouth County (top) and sunset at Sunset Beach in Cape May County (bottom)
Atop the Hudson Palisades in Englewood Cliffs, Bergen County, overlooking the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan, New York City
