Adirondack Park

Adirondack Park
New York Forest Preserve
Long Pond, in the Saint Regis Canoe Area.
Name origin: Mohawk for tree eaters.
Country	United States
State	New York
Region	Upstate New York
Highest point	Mount Marcy
- location	Keene Valley, Essex County
- elevation	5,344 ft (1,629 m)
- coordinates	44°06′45″N 73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W / 44.11250; -73.92389
Lowest point
- location	Ausable River at Lake Champlain, Essex County
- elevation	120 ft (37 m)
- coordinates	44°34′52″N 73°26′20″W / 44.58111°N 73.43889°W / 44.58111; -73.43889
Area	9,375 sq mi (24,281 km2)
Biomes	Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, boreal forest, alpine tundra
Founded	New York State Forest Preserve
Date	1885
Management	Adirondack Park Agency, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
- location	Ray Brook, Essex County
IUCN category	V - Protected Landscape/Seascape
NHL designation	1966
NRHP Ref#	66000891
Park area highlighted in green, bounded by the Blue Line, within New York state.
New York within the United States.

The Adirondack Park is a part of New York's Forest Preserve in Upstate New York, United States. The park's boundary corresponds to the Adirondack Mountains. Unlike most preserves, about 52 per cent of the land is privately owned inholdings heavily regulated by the Adirondack Park Agency. This area contains 102 towns and villages, as well as numerous farms, businesses, and an active timber harvesting industry. The year-round population is 132,000, with 200,000 seasonal residents. The inclusion of human communities makes the park one of the great experiments in conservation in the industrialized world.

The park's 6.1 million acres (2.5×10^⁶ ha) include more than 10,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, and a wide variety of habitats including wetlands and old-growth forests.

For the history of the area before the formation of the park, see The History of the Adirondack Mountains.

Before the 19th century the wilderness was viewed as desolate and forbidding. As Romanticism developed in the United States, the view of wilderness became more positive, as seen in the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The 1849 publication of Joel Tyler Headley's Adirondack; or, Life in the Woods triggered the development of hotels and stage coach lines. William Henry Harrison Murray's 1869 wilderness guidebook depicted the area as a place of relaxation and pleasure rather than a natural obstacle.

Financier and railroad promoter Thomas Clark Durant acquired a large tract of central Adirondack land and built a railroad from Saratoga Springs to North Creek. By 1875, there were more than two hundred hotels in the Adirondacks including Paul Smith's Hotel. About this time, the Great Camps were developed.