The detail conference venue information will be available about two weeks before the opening of the conference.

Attractions Overview of New York

Native Americans came to the area now called New York about 5,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, their descendants included Native American tribes such as the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca. In 1624 the Dutch established a colony on what’s now Manhattan Island called New Amsterdam. It was renamed New York once the British took control of the area in 1664.

But after the American Revolution in 1776, New York became a U.S. colony, then a state in 1788. One year later, George Washington was sworn in as the United States’ first president in New York City, then the country’s capital. (It would move to Washington, D.C., the next year, in 1790.) On September 11, 2001, hijackers flew planes into the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center; the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C.; and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Learn more about the history-making attack and meet some of the heroes who helped save lives that day. 

New York is bordered by Canada and Lake Ontario in the north; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Atlantic Ocean in the south; Lake Erie in the west; and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont in the east. The St. Lawrence-Champlain Lowland runs along the edge of the Adirondack Mountains and the Canadian border. In this hilly area, you can see Lake Champlain and Thousand Islands, a collection of small islands that sit between New York and Canada.

The Adirondack Upland, known for the Appalachian Mountains and its forests, waterfalls, and lakes includes New York’s highest peak, Mount Marcy. The Hudson-Mohawk Lowland contains much of the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, and the Allegheny Plateau, stretching from Lake Erie along the border with Pennsylvania, includes the 11 Finger Lakes and the forested Catskill Mountains. The Erie-Ontario Lowland is a plain dotted with oval-shaped mounds called drumlins. It reaches the shores of two Great Lakes: Erie and Ontario. Stretching out toward the ocean is the Atlantic Coastal Plain. It includes the sandy beaches and bays of Staten Island and Long Island.