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Administrative divisions of New York (state)
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The administrative divisions of New York are the various units of government that provide local government services in the state of New York. The state is divided into counties, cities, towns, and villages, each such government is granted varying home rule powers as provided by the New York Constitution. New York has various corporate entities that serve purposes that are also local governments, such as school. New York has 62 counties, which are subdivided into 932 towns and 62 cities, in total, the state has more than 3,400 active local governments and more than 4,200 taxing jurisdictions. They do so while adhering to the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New York, articles VIII and IX of the state constitution establish the rights and responsibilities of the municipal governments. The New York State Constitution provides for democratically elected bodies for counties, cities, towns. These legislative bodies are granted the power to local laws as needed in order to provide services to their citizens. The county is the administrative division of New York. There are sixty-two counties in the state, five of the counties are boroughs of the city of New York and do not have functioning county governments. Such services generally include law enforcement and public safety, social and health services, every county outside of New York City has a county seat, which is the location of county government. Nineteen counties operate under county charters, while 38 operate under the provisions of the County Law. Although all counties have a certain latitude to govern themselves, charter counties are afforded greater home rule powers, sixteen counties are governed by a Board of Supervisors, composed of the supervisors of its constituent towns and cities. In most of counties, each supervisors vote is weighted in accordance with the towns population in order to abide by the U. S. Supreme Court mandate of one person. Other counties have legislative districts of equal population, which may cross municipal borders, most counties in New York do not use the term Board of Supervisors. 34 counties have a County Legislature, six counties have a Board of Legislators, the five counties, or boroughs, of New York City are governed by a 51-member City Council. In non-charter counties, the legislative body exercises executive power as well, many, but not all, charter counties have an elected executive who is independent of the legislature, the exact form of government is defined in the County Charter. In New York, each city is a highly autonomous incorporated area that, with the exceptions of New York City, cities in New York are classified by the U. S. Census Bureau as incorporated places. They provide almost all services to their residents and have the highest degree of home rule, also, villages are part of a town, with residents who pay taxes to and receive services from the town
2.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
3.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
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Columbia County, New York
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Columbia County is a county located in the U. S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 63,096, the name comes from the Latin feminine form of the name of Christopher Columbus, which was at the time of the formation of the county a popular proposal for the name of the United States of America. Columbia County comprises the Hudson, NY Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Albany-Schenectady. It is located on the east side of the Hudson River, at the time of European encounter, the area was occupied by the indigenous Mohican Indians. To the west of the river were the Mohawk and other four tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, the first known European exploration of Columbia County was in 1609, when Henry Hudson, an English explorer sailing for the Dutch, ventured up the Hudson River. An accident to his craft forced him to stop at what is now known as Columbia County, in 1612, the Dutch established trading posts and minor settlements, constructing New Amsterdam and Fort Orange. Fort Orange became a center of the fur trade with the Mohawk people, traders began to stop at midway points along the Hudson River, on their travels between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange. Small settlements arose along the river to supply the traders ships, in 1649, Dutch colonists purchased land near Claverack and in 1667, more land was purchased. As more Dutch arrived, the region slowly developed, in 1664, the English took over New Netherland and renamed it the Province of New York, they also renamed Fort Orange as Albany. He gained much larger grants from the government, for a total of 160,240 acres. He was made lord of the manor by the Crown, with all its perquisites, in 1710, he sold 6,000 acres of his property to Queen Anne of England for use as work camps and resettlement of Palatine German refugees. The Crown had supported their passage to New York, and they were to pay off the costs as indentured labor, some 1200 Palatine Germans were brought to Livingston Manor. New Yorks Governor Hunter had also helped with arrangements, the workers were to manufacture naval stores from the pine trees in the Catskill Mountains. They were promised land for resettlement after completing their terms of indenture and they were refugees from years of religious fighting along the border with France, as well as crop failures from a severe winter. Work camps were established on both sides of the Hudson River, the Germans quickly established Protestant churches at the heart of their community, which recorded their weddings, births and deaths, among the first vital records kept in the colony. In 1799, the boundary of Columbia County was moved southward to include that portion of Livingston Manor located in Dutchess County. In the nineteenth century, the Vermont Central Railway was constructed to the area and it provided transportation north towards Rutland and Burlington, Vermont, and south towards the major junction town of Chatham, New York, for travel to points west, south and east. Voters in Columbia County since the century have mostly elected Republicans to office
