Where is Upstate New York?

The demarcation debate has raged on for years, with lifelong New Yorkers rolling up their sleeves to practice controversial cartography.

It's a political sticking point too. New York City-born gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon found herself in the crosshairs of statewide attention this month when she casually declared the line started at Ithaca.

Ithaca mayor Svante Myrick swiftly told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, "We're at least three hours away from the upstate-downstate border, which for me is once you're past Yonkers (heading north), you're in upstate."

Actor William Shatner also caused an uproar when he visited Syracuse's Dinosaur Bar-B-Que earlier in April, and sparked another #WhereIsUpstate argument on Twitter.

The flurry of attention led The Washington Post to revisit the debate, concluding: "If you can commute to New York City, you're not upstate. North of Poughkeepsie, you can't."

The Post's Philip Bump turned to poll data to find a confusing split among Upstate New Yorkers, though a slim majority drew the line North of Westchester.

Good grief. We didn't need a Washington-based paper to tell us that.

The NYUP.com coverage area.

On NYUP.com (newyorkupstate.com), we cover the news of Upstate New York, from Niagara Falls to the Finger Lakes to the Hudson Valley and beyond.

In our coverage, we side with that slim majority. Our boundary runs along the Pennsylvania border, and cuts above Rockland and Westchester counties.

But as we've learned from Twitter, any answer to "Where is Upstate New York?" is wrong.

A passionate contingent believes Upstate New York refers only to the Capital District and surrounding areas, while the rest of the state is broken down into Western NY, Northern NY, Central NY and the Southern Tier.

That logic makes sense in many states, but New York is not like other states.

When a state is also home to one of the most populated and well-known cities in the world, it helps to make a distinction between that downstate metropolis and the rest of the province.

Whether in Boise or Bangkok, Upstaters must often clarify where they are in relation to the Big Apple.

As a whole, Upstate New York can then be subdivided into other regions: the Adirondacks, Catskills, North Country, and so on.

Hey, agree to disagree. Just don't let anyone from Washington have the final say for crying out loud.

Katrina Tulloch writes culture stories for NYUP.com, Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact her: Email | Twitter | Facebook