Buffalo

Sister cities

• Changzhou
• Torremaggiore
• Siena
• Tver
• Dortmund
• Lille
• Rzeszów
• Saint Ann Parish
• Cape Coast
• Kanazawa
• Drohobych
• Kiryat Gat

History

Before the arrival of Europeans, nomadic Paleo-Indians inhabited the western New York region from the 8th millennium BCE. The Woodland period began around 1000 BC, marked by the rise of the Iroquois Confederacy and the spread of its tribes throughout the state. Seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries were the first Europeans to visit the area. During the Beaver Wars in the mid-17th century the Senecas conquered the Erie and Neutrals in the region. Native Americans did not settle along Buffalo Creek permanently until 1780, when displaced Senecas were relocated from Fort Niagara. The Seneca town of , meaning "Between the basswoods," was historically located on Buffalo Creek, and continues to be used as the Seneca name for the modern city of Buffalo. Louis Hennepin and Sieur de La Salle explored the upper Niagara and Ontario regions in the late 1670s. In 1679, La Salle's ship, Le Griffon, became the first to sail above Niagara Falls near Cayuga Creek. Baron de Lahontan visited the site of Buffalo in 1687. New York and Massachusetts were vying for the territory which included Buffalo, and Massachusetts had the right to purchase all but a portion of land. The rights to the Massachusetts territories were sold to Robert Morris in 1791. Despite objections from Seneca chief Red Jacket, Morris brokered a deal between fellow chief Cornplanter and the Dutch dummy corporation Holland Land Company. The Holland Land Purchase gave the Senecas three reservations, and the Holland Land Company received for about thirty-three cents per acre. As a result of the war, in which the Iroquois sided with the British Army, Iroquois territory was gradually reduced in the late 1700s by European settlers through successive statewide treaties which included the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) and…

Geography

Buffalo is on the eastern end of Lake Erie opposite Fort Erie, Ontario. It is at the head of the Niagara River, which flows north over Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. The Buffalo metropolitan area is on the Erie/Ontario Lake Plain of the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands, a narrow plain extending east to Utica, New York. The Southtowns are hillier, leading to the Cattaraugus Hills in the Appalachian Upland. Several types of shale, limestone and lagerstätten are prevalent in Buffalo and its surrounding area, lining their stream beds. According to Fox Weather, Buffalo is one of the top five snowiest large cities in the country, receiving, on average, 95 inches of snow annually. Although the city has not experienced any recent or significant earthquakes, Buffalo is in the Southern Great Lakes Seismic Zone (part of the Great Lakes tectonic zone). Buffalo has four channels within its boundaries: the Niagara River, Buffalo River (and Creek), Scajaquada Creek, and the Black Rock Canal, adjacent to the Niagara River. The city's Bureau of Forestry maintains a database of over seventy thousand trees. According to the United States Census Bureau, Buffalo has an area of ; is land, and the rest is water. Downtown Buffalo landmarks include Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building, an early skyscraper; the Ellicott Square Building, once one of the largest of its kind in the world; the Art Deco Buffalo City Hall and the McKinley Monument, and the Electric Tower. Beyond downtown, the Buffalo Central Terminal was built in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood in 1929; the Richardson Olmsted Complex, built in 1881, was an insane asylum until its closure in the 1970s. Urban renewal from the 1950s to the 1970s spawned the Brutalist-style Buffalo City Court Building and Seneca One Tower, the city's…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  35,692
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  35,472
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  32,030
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  30,315
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  28,171
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  28,058
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  27,464
• Ring-billed Gull

  Larus delawarensis Ord, 1815 · Aves
  26,920

Largest nearby schools

• CHARTER SCHOOL FOR APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES
  Other · BUFFALO · 2,309 students · 11.5:1 ratio
• LANCASTER HIGH SCHOOL
  High · LANCASTER · 1,652 students · 12.3:1 ratio
• KENMORE WEST SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
  High · BUFFALO · 1,358 students · 9.5:1 ratio
• FRONTIER SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
  High · HAMBURG · 1,352 students · 12.2:1 ratio
• HUTCHINSON CENTRAL TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
  High · BUFFALO · 1,175 students · 12.6:1 ratio
• KENMORE EAST SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
  High · TONAWANDA · 1,127 students · 9.4:1 ratio
• WEST SENECA WEST SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
  High · WEST SENECA · 1,110 students · 12.2:1 ratio
• TAPESTRY CHARTER SCHOOL
  Other · BUFFALO · 1,108 students · 12.4:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 3.8 — 2023-02-06
  1 km NE of West Seneca, New York
• M 2.6 — 2022-03-15
  5 km SSW of Warsaw, New York
• M 2.6 — 2020-03-29
  11 km N of Lyndonville, New York
• M 3 — 2018-05-08
  14 km SSE of Ajax, Canada
• M 2.52 — 2017-07-11
  11 km NNW of Barker, New York
• M 2.46 — 2014-02-13
  34 km N of Lyndonville, New York