[metmom]

No, there’s big region north of Rockland and Westchester County that is deemed (by folks living there) to be “Central New York - including Syracuse, Utica and Albany. So they’d tell you to go north of that to be in “Upstate” NY.

CNY goes from just east of Rochester to Utica by us Syracuse area inhabitants.

Albany is the Capital District. It's way to far east to be Central NY.

[zencycler]

My comment is based on a colloquial division of the state into three regions - up, down and central. I think yours is based on more regions or districts including western, capital and north country and hudson valley. But note in that schema there is no region that gets labelled as “upstate” or even “downstate” for that matter.

Or to put it another way, if there are only three choices, then is Albany central new york, or upstate?