What does "upstate" mean in the US?

makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 161 points –

I hear it in movies so the time. We're going upstate. I went upstate. Etc

I never hear downstate, or similar. Does it just mean going north?

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It's a New York thing to refer to the rural Northern and Western parts of New York State that are not New York City. No one (or at least very very few) outside of New York State uses it to refer to any other place.

Really? Well, I'm from Utica and I never heard anyone use the term "upstate."

Not in Utica, no. It’s all Albany expression.

Not in Utica, no; it’s an Albany expression.

New York the state or NYC?

Edit: I am terribly sorry for not knwing all citiies and to what state and where they belong on the us map as someone not from North America... 🙄

"The Northern and Western parts of New York State that are not new York City" how is there any confusion?

It’s a New York thing

New York the state or NYC?

In my experience people in the Northeast US pretty much never refer to New York City as just 'New York'. New York will mean the state, they will say 'the city' or 'NYC' to differentiate from the state. Or they will say upstate to mean the rest of the state outside of NYC metro area.

I feel like the answer to this lies within the word itself

this really only applies to New York, as New York City is in the bottom little bit of the state’s southern nubbin and the rest of the state is commonly called “Upstate New York” since when people outside the northeast refer to New York, they’re talking about New York City, rather than the state of New York. thus Upstate New York was shortened to Upstate. (it seems to hold that most people i know who grew up in the northeast call New York City “NYC” rather than what i used growing up which was “New York.”

I am an american, I grew up in a state in the south west, no one ever used the term “going upstate” for anything because there was no such place to go.

I guarantee you only see dialog such as this in media set in NYC.

Like others are saying, it is a new york thing. But in general, upstate means further from the city than where the speaker lives. Until you crouse some imaginary line, then downstate means closer to the city. Comonly, but not always, it is used in a derogatory sense. They city people think the upstaters are rural hicks. And the upstaters think the city people couldn't survive outside a city. Source, I grew up in an area that didn't consider itself upstate, but all the city people sure did.

Is it due to the fact NYC is in the southern part of NY?

Yes but also when people are telling someone they're from New York they tend to assume the city, so the follow-up answer is for clarification. The state is big and wildly different from NYC

Yeah, I went sightseeing to Niagara Falls, then to Buffalo. They're nothing like NYC.

A lot of people are saying it's primarily a NY thing, so I'd just chime in to say we use it in PA as well, at least in the Philly area, to refer to the northern parts of the state.

Not much more to it than youre going far enough north to be out of your city's metro area, but staying in the same state. In PA I'd say upstate probably starts around the Poconos. I think new Yorkers kind of tend to use it to refer to the rest of the state, we wouldn't tend to do that here, Central and Western PA are different things than Upstate PA, although there is definitely some overlap and there's not exactly clearly defined borders.

I don't know how many other states use the same terminology, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's pretty common in other largish states with larger population densities in the southern part of the state and lower densities in the north (I don't know off the top of my head which other states that would apply to, maybe it's only PA and NY)

I have never called any part of PA upstate. (Not that it's wrong that you do) Everyone I know calls the northern half of the eastern third of the state "the Northeast" or NEPA. Western PA is the entire western third of the state, and Central PA is for some reason only the southern half of the middle third of the state. I guess maybe the northern half of the middle third could be upstate, but I think I just don't have a word for it.

PA really should probably be at least three separate states.

As long as I don't have to be associated with Pittsburgers I'll be happy.

This is absolutely reflective of my experience in PA as well. Everything you said and exactly as you said it.

Nothing is "upstate".

NEPA is anything north of 80 and (roughly) east of where the Susquehanna splits near Selinsgrove.

Western PA is the whole state, north to south, from the Ohio border to approximately 219.

Central PA is south of 80, between 219 in the west, and east up to and including Lancaster county.

The part that's left over is usually just called "north central PA", but there's not much of anything up there, so it's usually referred to by specific county or town in that region, and most frequently when you do hear that, it's someone describing where their hunting camp is.

I lived in the Harrisburg area for 30 years and I've never heard it used to refer to any part of PA.

Maine uses “Down East”, which is actually north east of the Portland area. Actually I’m not sure anyone really totally understands exactly what or where down east is there.

Most states I’ve lived in use “up north” when taking about the northern half of rural part of a state.

Hmm I never heard anyone say upstate PA but I never had much business up there lol

I live in Southern California and we don’t really use that phrase around here. I think it’s almost entirely used to refer to basically any area of New York north of NYC.

Yeah, I’ve lived in quite a few different states, but only in NYC do I hear and use “upstate.”

Since a lot of people have upstate, there are some places that have a downstate in the southern part of the state, the best examples I can think of being Illinois and Maine.

It just happens to be that you've heard upstate more because New York City is a lot more depicted in American media.

Thats what Frodo said to Gaffer when he asked where he was going, "oh, just upshire."

He didn't trick old Proudfeet though, he knew Frodo was weavin porkies.

I guess you might be hearing it movies set in New York City, which is in the southern tip of the state of New York. All the other notable cities, the Catskill mountains, Niagara Falls, and other attractions are all further north, or upstate. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the expression got picked up by a wider crowd to mean “north”.

In Illinois you might hear "downstate" to refer to anything south of Champaign-Urbana

It's common in states that have a lower population center, geographically. I'm in Minnesota, and our Twin Cities are in the southern third of the state.

"Going up north (to the cabin)" is our spin on "upstate", because (for most people) there isn't much of a reason to go much more north than we already do.

Upstate is used in South Carolina as well, used to refer to the western and more mountainous part of the state. The eastern non-mountainous part of the state is called low-country.

With the Midlands to mean everything from Rock Hill through Columbia and to Aiken!

It means the Northern part of the state, typically when the state has a North-South cultural divide. It's not exclusive to the US though, I've seen it used in places like Sao Paulo and Lagos before. Anywhere where one locality serves as a drain on the rest will get people to refer to different halves of the place, I guess nobody learned from Athens and Sparta.

Similarly the small town I grew up in had “the other side of the tracks”

Def depends where you’re at. In Virginia we call upstate Nova (northern VA). In NJ it’s North Jersey (I’m originally from South Jersey) PA is more east west oriented since Philly and Pittsburgh are east and west ends of the state.

I find Jersey quite silly because there's a distinct North and South Jersey, but then people in the middle still have some ambiguous Central Jersey pride to them

upstate: situated or occurring in the northern part of a state, especially the northern part of New York State as contrasted with New York City. "upstate New York"

It's a New York thing. That state loosely divides into two regions: New York City to the south, and everything else to the north ("upstate"). I have heard people refer to the New York City area as "downstate" but that term is less common.

Similarly, Manhattan is loosely split into its northern portion (uptown), middle portion (midtown), and southern portion (downtown).

In Michigan, there is "downstate" it means heading to the southern part of the state.

Where does the line for this lie? I've lived in Northern LP most of my life and I've never heard it

I'm also in northern LP. We use it for when we are planning a trip to Detroit, for example.

Now that you say it like that maybe I have heard it in this context. I just avoid that area lol

it's very common in the greater NYC area to refer to the rest of the state, esp. the more rural parts (even if a lot of the state does not consider itself "upstate").

I'm probably wrong, but I think it means somewhere north of the capital city, and maybe it's only used in New York

You are very wrong. Albany is part of "upstate NY" and Albany is literally the capital city... In NY it means basically anywhere that isn't NYC.

Ok, so upstate means north of the capital or north NYC if in New York?

The term upstate has no relation to the capital city, that was a mistaken assertion. It isn’t used very widely at all, it’s just a local term in a couple of states for their northern portions. Most states don’t have an area that is referred to as upstate.

In NY state it essentially means anywhere north of NYC, the capital city Albany is upstate NY. It doesn't seem to mean north of the capital in any state unless that capital is at the southern part.

Only New York. It means all the parts of New York state that aren't New York City

Long Island is excluded too

Is Long Island named Long Island because its long?

It appears so, it was called other things by native people but the Dutch seem to be the first to call it Long Island in the 1600s. Many geographic features in the area have similar sort of names, like Short Hill, East River, West River, Indian Hill, Short Beach, Beaver Swamp, the colonists really weren't very clever with their naming.

Upstate in NY is literally the entire state other than NYC and Long Island.

It refers to the northern part of whatever state the speaker happens to be in. It's mostly used by New Yorkers to refer to the more rural part of New York State which is North of New York City.

Downstate is a thing, I guess, but neither upstate nor downstate are used much outside of New York in my experience.

Echoing a lot of the people here, I've personally only heard it used in New York state

Yes, the northern part of the state. Typically its also far away from major cities into a more rural area.

Yeah! I've never heard it in BC, Canada. "I'm going upstate BC." "Prince George?! Fort Saint John!?!"

Doesn't sound right.

That might be due to the fact that Canada does not have states

As others have said, going to the northern part. Depending on the state it usually carries with it the idea of a change of scenery abd culture.

For example a New Yorker may say “upstate” referring to the more rural areas.

Similar to how “out west” in early US history meant “wild and untamed country full of potential, opportunities and danger”

While I’ve never heard down state I have heard similar.

“Down south” or “below I10” or “Cajun country” in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi referring to the gulf, more Catholic Cajun areas. And down south in other states referring to the southern states.

In NY it means "north or west, but definitely not east or south of NYC

Sending someone upstate means sending them to prison

I'd bet a dollar OP just watched the Friends Porsche episode.

How you pronounce Porsche anyway? I been using how Joey says it.

I think the way he says it is technically correct. I usually hear and say the one-syllable version, like "porsh". But that's the bastardized American pronunciation.

It refers to a rural area of the state. Usually with a higher income bracket.