Page 71 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

INTRODUCING NE W Y ORK CIT Y & THE MID-A TLANTIC REGION  69

NEW YORK CITY & THE

MID-ATLANTIC REGION

The tri-state region around New York City truly embodies American diversity
and dynamism. The vitality of New York City and Philadelphia is balanced by a
surprisingly calm, almost pastoral hinterland. The Mid-Atlantic landscape is
spectacular and ranges from dramatic mountain scenery, superb river valleys,
and forests, interspersed with rolling farmlands.
New York City, or the “Big Apple,” dominates communities still speak German (Deutsch),
northeastern US, and to a large extent with the industrial cities of Pittsburgh and
controls the country’s economy and Reading. Farther north, the state of New
culture. It is, without exaggeration, one York has majestic mountains, picturesque
of the world’s great cities, and it is hard lakes, and the scenic Hudson River Valley.
to imagine visiting the region without
spending some time here. Philadelphia, History
the other major city, was the nation’s The Mid-Atlantic Region’s natural wealth
leading city during Colonial times, and supported some of early America’s most
its wealth of history offers unforgettable powerful and accomplished Native
insights into early American ideals. Americans. The first main groups were the
Fascinating as these cities are, the Algonquian tribes, including the Lenni
broader region around them paints a Lenape, who lived in what is now New
much fuller picture of the nation. New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the early
Jersey, despite its reputation for heavy 16th century, the Algonquian were ousted
industry and sprawling suburbia, has by incoming tribes of Iroquois. Settling in
much to offer, from the Victorian-era the Finger Lakes area in central New York
coastal resort of Cape May to Ivy League State, the Iroquois, one of North America’s
Princeton University. Penn sylvania, to the most socially sophisticated tribes, formed
west, juxtaposes peaceful scenes of rural a powerful alliance among their five
farmland in the “Pennsylvania Dutch” constituent tribes – the Senecas, Cayugas,
country where Amish and Mennonite Oneidas, Mohawks, and Onondagas.

Amish farmers harvesting corn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Brooklyn Bridge over the Hudson River in Manhattan, New York City

068-071_EW_USA.indd 69 11/2/16 2:43 PM