Cattaraugus County, New York

Coordinates: 42°14′N 78°41′W / 42.24°N 78.68°W / 42.24; -78.68

Cattaraugus County is a county located in the western part of the U.S. state of New York, with one side bordering Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 80,317. The county seat is Little Valley. The county was created in 1808 and later organized in 1817.

Cattaraugus County comprises the Olean, NY Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Buffalo-Cheektowaga, NY Combined Statistical Area. Within its boundaries are the Allegany Indian Reservation of the Seneca Nation of New York, and a large part of the Allegheny National Forest. The Allegheny River runs through the county.

History

The largely unsettled territory was the traditional homeland of the now-extinct Wenrohronon Indians and later occupied by the Seneca people, one of the five Nations of the Haudenosaunee. During the colonial era, it was claimed by at least three territories: New York Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Pennsylvania Colony, each of which extended their colonial claims to the west until after the Revolutionary War.