Hudson River

The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake in the town of Newcomb, and flows south to New York Bay, a tidal estuary between New York City and Jersey City, before draining into the Atlantic Ocean. The river marks boundaries between several New York counties and the eastern border between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet that formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.
The Hudson River runs through the Munsee, Lenape, Mohican, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee homelands. Prior to European exploration, the river was known as the Mahicannittuk by the Mohicans, Ka'nón:no by the Mohawks, and Muhheakantuck by the Lenape. The river was subsequently named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company who explored it in 1609, and after whom Hudson Bay in Canada is also named. It had previously been observed by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailing for King Francis I of France in 1524, as he became the first European known to have entered the Upper New York Bay, but he considered the river to be an estuary. The Dutch called the river the North River, and they called the present-day Delaware River the South River, which formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Settlements of the colony clustered around the Hudson, and its strategic importance as the gateway to the American interior led to years of competition between the English and the Dutch over control of the river and colony.
In the eighteenth century, the river valley and its inhabitants were the subject and inspiration of Washington Irving, the first internationally acclaimed American author. In the nineteenth century, the area inspired the Hudson River School of landscape painting, an American pastoral style, as well as the concepts of environmentalism and wilderness. The Delaware and Hudson Canal connected Port Jervis on the Delaware river to Kingston on the Hudson, creating an inland route for coal from Pennsylvania to New York that bypassed the dangerous coastal route. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, connected Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie and therefore New York to the Great Lakes, becoming an important route for western settlers.
Industrial contamination of the Hudson River grew sharply in the mid-twentienth century, particularly from polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Pollution control regulations, enforcement actions, and restoration projects initiated in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries have begun to improve water quality. Sturgeon have been seen in the Hudson in the early twenty-first century.

Albany

Rensselaer

Greene

Bergen, NJ

Hudson, NJ

New York

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Names

The river was called Ka’nón:no or Ca-ho-ha-ta-te-a by the Haudenosaunee, and it was known as Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk or Mahicannittuk by the Mohican nation who formerly inhabited both banks of the lower portion of the river. The meaning of the Mohican name comes from the river's long tidal range. The Delaware Tribe of Indians considers the closely related Mohicans to be a part of the Lenape people, and so the Lenape also claim the Hudson as part of their ancestral territory, also calling it Muhheakantuck.
The first known European name for the river was the Rio San Antonio as named by the Portuguese explorer in Spain's employ, Estêvão Gomes, who explored the Mid-Atlantic coast in 1525. Another early name for the Hudson used by the Dutch was Rio de Montaigne. Later, they generally termed it the Noortrivier, or "North River", the Delaware River being known as the Zuidrivier, or "South River". Other occasional names for the Hudson included Manhattes rieviere "Manhattan River", Groote Rivier "Great River", and de grootte Mouritse reviere, or "the Great Maurits River".
The translated name North River was used in the New York metropolitan area up until the early 1900s, with limited use continuing into the present day. The term persists in radio communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below the Tappan Zee. The term also continues to be used in names of facilities in the river's southern portion, such as the North River piers, North River Tunnels, and the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant. It is believed that the first use of the name Hudson River in a map was in a map created by the cartographer John Carwitham in 1740.
In 1939, the magazine Life described the river as "America's Rhine", comparing it to the Rhine in Central and Western Europe.
The tidal Hudson is unusually straight for a river, and the earliest colonial Dutch charts of the Hudson River designated the narrow, meandering stretches as racks, or reaches. These names included the four "lower reaches" through the Hudson Highlands plus the four "upper reaches" from Inbocht Bay to Kinderhook. A ninth reach was described as "the long reach" by the Englishman Robert Juet and designated as the Langerack by the Dutch. An embellished list of "The Old Reaches" was published in a tourist guidebook for steamboat passengers in the nineteenth century.

Course

Upper Hudson River

Using river names as seen on maps, Indian Pass Brook flows into Henderson Lake. The outlet of Henderson Lake is most commonly referred to as the official start of the Hudson River, as it flows east and meets the southwest flowing Calamity Brook. The confluence of the two rivers however is where most maps begin to use the Hudson River name on a cartographical basis. South of the outlet of Sanford Lake, the Opalescent River flows into the Hudson.
The Hudson then flows south, taking in Beaver Brook and the outlet of Lake Harris. After its confluence with the Indian River, the Hudson forms the boundary between Essex and Hamilton counties. The Hudson flows entirely into Warren County in the hamlet of North River, and takes in the Schroon River at Warrensburg. Further south, the river forms the boundary between Warren and Saratoga Counties. The river then takes in the Sacandaga River from the Great Sacandaga Lake.
Shortly thereafter, the river leaves the Adirondack Park, flows under Interstate 87, and through Glens Falls, just south of Lake George although receiving no streamflow from the lake. It next goes through Hudson Falls. At this point the river forms the boundary between Washington and Saratoga Counties. Here the river has an elevation of. Just south in Fort Edward, the river reaches its confluence with the Champlain Canal, which historically provided boat traffic between New York City and Montreal and the rest of Eastern Canada via the Hudson, Lake Champlain and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Further south the Hudson takes in water from the Batten Kill River and Fish Creek near Schuylerville. The river then forms the boundary between Saratoga and Rensselaer counties. The river then enters the heart of the Capital District. It takes in water from the Hoosic River, which extends into Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter the river has its confluence with the Mohawk River, the largest tributary of the Hudson River, in Waterford. The river then reaches the Federal Dam in Troy, marking an impoundment of the river. At an elevation of, the bottom of the dam marks the beginning of the tidal influence in the Hudson as well as the beginning of the lower Hudson River.

Lower Hudson River

South of the Federal Dam, the Hudson River begins to widen considerably. The river enters the Hudson Valley, flowing between the cities of Albany on the west bank and Rensselaer on the east bank. Interstate 90 crosses the Hudson into Albany at this point in the river. The Hudson then leaves the Capital District, forming the boundary between Greene and Columbia Counties. It then meets its confluence with Schodack Creek, widening considerably at this point. After flowing by Hudson, the river forms the boundary between Ulster and Columbia Counties and Ulster and Dutchess Counties, passing Germantown and Kingston.
The Delaware and Hudson Canal met the river at Kingston. The river then flows by Hyde Park, former residence of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and alongside the city of Poughkeepsie, flowing under the Walkway over the Hudson and the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Afterwards, the Hudson passes Wappingers Falls and takes in Wappinger Creek. The river then forms the boundary between Orange and Dutchess Counties. It flows between Newburgh and Beacon and under the Newburgh Beacon Bridge, taking in the Fishkill Creek.
In this area, between Gee's Point at the US Military Academy and Constitution Island, an area known as "World's End" marks the deepest part of the Hudson, at. Shortly thereafter, the river enters the Hudson Highlands between Putnam and Orange Counties, flowing between mountains such as Storm King Mountain, Breakneck Ridge, and Bear Mountain. The river narrows considerably here before flowing under the Bear Mountain Bridge, which connects Westchester and Rockland Counties.
File:2016 One World Observatory view along Hudson River.jpg|thumb|The river between Hudson Waterfront in New Jersey and Manhattan
Afterward, leaving the Hudson Highlands, the river enters Haverstraw Bay, the widest point of the river at wide. Shortly thereafter, the river forms the Tappan Zee and flows under the Tappan Zee Bridge, which carries the New York State Thruway between Tarrytown and Nyack in Westchester and Rockland Counties respectively. At the state line with New Jersey the west bank of the Hudson enters Bergen County. The Palisades are large, rocky cliffs along the west bank of the river; also known as Bergen Hill at their lower end in Hudson County.
Further south the east bank of the river becomes Yonkers and then the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. South of the confluence of the Hudson and Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the east bank of the river becomes Manhattan. The river is sometimes still called the North River from this point south. The George Washington Bridge crosses the river between Fort Lee and the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
The Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel also cross under the river between Manhattan and New Jersey. South of the Battery, the river proper ends, meeting the East River to form Upper New York Bay, also known as New York Harbor. Its outflow continues through the Narrows between Brooklyn and Staten Island, under the Verrazzano Bridge, and into Lower New York Bay, Gravesend Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean through the Hudson Canyon.