Where to go and What to see in Rome, New York

The City of Rome has a population of about 40,000 and is located in Oneida County in the geographic center of New York State. Rome is one of two principal cities in the Utica-Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area, which lies in the "Leatherstocking Country" made famous by James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. Rome is in New York's 24th congressional district.

The city occupies a site that was important to the main 18th and 19th century waterway connecting the Atlantic seaboard of North America to the Great Lakes. The original settlements were associated with fortifications erected in the 1750s to defend the waterway, and in particular the British Fort Stanwix (1763). The development into a city began with the construction of the Rome Canal along the waterway in 1796, and in the same year the Town of Rome was formally created as a section of Oneida County. For a time, the small community immediately next to the canal was informally known as Lynchville, after the original owner of the property. The Town of Rome was converted formally into a city by the New York State Legislature on February 23, 1870. The residents have called Rome the City of American History.

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