Regional Overview

Why the Region Matters

Buffalo Niagara Region

At the beginning of this century, businessman Peter A. Porter wrote of a time before European contact:

Niagara was then, as it is now, the geographical center of the eastern one-third of North America; it was the center of population among the many and widely distributed Indian Tribes; it was the most accessible, the most easily reached place, from all directions in America. Indian trails led toward it from all points of the compass; it was easily accessible by water from every quarter.

Today, the hallmark of the Buffalo Niagara region remains its strategic location, at once a center, gateway, and frontier. At its core stands Niagara Falls—the "thundering wonder" that provides a unity of interest and, in many respects, an external identity to the region's 2.5 million residents. Within a 500-mile radius of the Falls reside 55% of the United States and 62% of the Canadian population, including many of the two nations' major metropolitan areas, among them Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City, and Boston. Goods and services, tourists and residents travel daily throughout the binational region, connected by an extensive transportation system of highways, watercourses, air routes, and rail lines.

Trails still lead to Buffalo Niagara "from all points of the compass," connecting the region to people and places around the globe. Not surprisingly, the region is home to a rich and increasingly diverse mix of racial and ethnic groups, from the descendants of the region's original North American Indian inhabitants to the most recent newcomers from Southeast Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and all other regions of the world. Despite this diversity, and its richly varied terrain and walks of life, the Buffalo Niagara region is bound together by a common history, economy, and environment, and a shared responsibility for regional wellbeing.