Cortland County

Cortland County, New York
County
Cortland County Courthouse
Seal
Location in the U.S. state of New York
New York's location in the U.S.
Founded	1808
Named for	Pierre Van Cortlandt
Seat	Cortland
Largest city	Cortland
Area
• Total	502 sq mi (1,300 km2)
• Land	499 sq mi (1,292 km2)
• Water	2.8 sq mi (7 km2), 0.5%
Population
• (2010)	49,336
• Density	99/sq mi (38/km²)
Congressional district	22nd
Time zone	Eastern: UTC-5/-4
Website	www.cortland-co.org

Cortland County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population of Cortland County was 49,336. The county seat is Cortland. The county is named after Pierre Van Cortlandt, president of the convention at Kingston that wrote the first New York State Constitution in 1777, and first lieutenant governor of the state.

Cortland County comprises the Cortland, NY Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Ithaca-Cortland, NY Combined Statistical Area.

The Cortland apple is named for the county.

Located in the glaciated Appalachian Plateau area of Central New York, midway between Syracuse and Binghamton, this predominantly rural county is the southeastern gateway to the Finger Lakes Region. Scattered archaeological evidence indicates the Iroquois also known as the Haudenosaunee controlled the area beginning about AD 1500.

What was to become Cortland County remained within Indian territory until the American Revolution. It became part of the Military Tract, when, in 1781, more than 1¼ million acres (5,100 km²) were set aside by the State's Legislature to compensate two regiments formed to protect the State's western section from the English and their Iroquois allies, at the close of the Revolution. To encourage settlement in the upstate isolated wilderness, the State constructed a road from Oxford through Cortland County to Cayuga Lake in 1792-94. This, and construction of privately financed roads, were the major impetus to settlement.