Essex County

Essex County is located in the heart of New York State's Adirondack Park – south of Montreal and north of New York City. The Adirondack Park is a six-million acre park comprised of both public and private lands and contains the largest protected areas in the continental United States.  The Park is ecologically significant in that it contains one of the least fragmented temperate forest landscapes anywhere in the world.  The Park is also significant in that it contains historic resources, charming hamlets and villages, a rich cultural history and access to recreational resources.  The Park is home to 130,000 full-time residents and is visited annually by 8 million people.  The people of New York State value the Adirondacks as a cherished resource with the Constitutional protections of the public lands of the Forest Preserve and the Adirondack Park Agency which regulates land use planning for private lands.  Local communities are also stewards of this unique Park and believe that their communities must also prosper to continue to provide the environmental benefits that are shared by New York residents.

Interstate 87, the major highway between Albany and Canada runs right through the county. Amtrak's Manhattan to Montreal "Adirondack Special" also makes a number of stops within the county.

Boasting 1,907 square miles of land, Essex is the largest county in the park. Its terrain varies, ranging from 95 feet above sea level at Lake Champlain to 5,344 feet at Mount Marcy – the highest point in New York State. Lakes, rivers, streams, along with hundreds of miles of wilderness cover the landscape.

Essex County is in the northeastern part of New York State, just west of Vermont along the eastern boundary of the State. The eastern boundary of Essex County is Lake Champlain, which serves as the New York-Vermont border.

The AuSable River forms a partial northern boundary for the county.