Allegany County, New York

Allegany County is a county in New York, United States, in the Southern Tier along the Pennsylvania border. It had a population of 46,456 at the 2020 census and covers 1,034 square miles (2,680 km2), of which 1,029 square miles are land and 5.1 square miles are water, centred near 42°13′N 78°01′W.

Belmont is the county seat, and its postal code is 14813. The county contains 10 incorporated villages and 29 towns, plus dozens of smaller hamlets and a handful of mobile-home communities scattered across those towns. Allegany County sits in the Eastern time zone, and its FIPS code is 36003.

Towns & Villages in Allegany County

Allegany County has no incorporated cities. Its population centres are 10 villages — each a self-governing municipality nested inside one of the county’s 29 towns — plus a long list of unincorporated hamlets and a few mobile-home parks that carry local place names but no municipal government of their own. In the table, “Village” rows are incorporated; “Unincorp.” rows are hamlets, crossroads, or trailer-court communities with no separate charter. Population and ZIP figures are given only where a place has its own U.S. Census or postal designation; hamlets that share a larger place’s ZIP or are folded into their town’s census count are marked with —.

One duplicate entry for “Higgins” in the old listing has been merged into a single row. Canaseraga village sits on the Allegany–Steuben county line; its township of record is left blank here rather than guessed, since the village hall itself is on the Steuben side even though most of the built-up area and its ZIP code fall in Allegany County.

Townships

Allegany County’s 29 towns are its primary units of local government — each one is New York’s version of a township, and every village and hamlet above sits inside one of them. 2020 township-level population figures were not independently verified for this rewrite and are omitted rather than estimated; the table below lists each town with the villages or named hamlets known to lie inside it.

ZIP Codes

• 14895 — Wellsville
• 14802 — Alfred (also serves Alfred Station)
• 14727 — Cuba (also serves South Cuba)
• 14715 — Bolivar (also serves South Bolivar)
• 14806 — Andover
• 14813 — Belmont
• 14709 — Angelica
• 14822 — Canaseraga
• 14804 — Almond (also serves North Almond)
• 14774 — Richburg
• 14711 — Belfast
• 14717 — Caneadea
• 14735 — Fillmore
• 14739 — Friendship
• 14744 — Houghton
• 14745 — Hume
• 14754 — Little Genesee
• 14777 — Rushford
• 14880 — Scio
• 14894 — Stannards
• 14884 — Swain
• 14897 — Whitesville
• 14707 — Allentown

Most of the county’s smaller hamlets have no post office of their own and use the ZIP of the nearest listed town.

Geography

Allegany County lies on the Allegheny Plateau, a landscape of steep, forested hills cut by narrow river valleys, in the west-central part of New York’s Southern Tier. The Genesee River rises just south of the county line in Pennsylvania and flows north through the towns of Genesee, Angelica, and Belfast on its way toward Rochester; smaller streams such as Van Campen Creek and Black Creek drain the county’s western towns. Alma Hill, at 2,548 feet, is the county’s highest point.

Allegany County borders Livingston County to the north, Steuben County to the east, Wyoming County to the northwest, Cattaraugus County to the west, and Potter County and McKean County, both in Pennsylvania, to the south.

Demographics

Allegany County had a population of 46,456 at the 2020 census, spread across a mostly rural land area of 1,029 square miles — a density of about 45 people per square mile. Wellsville, with 4,679 residents, and Alfred, with 4,174, are the county’s two largest communities; Alfred’s count is boosted by the student population of Alfred University and Alfred State College. Household income across the county runs well below the New York median of $82,095, consistent with a rural, agriculture- and small-manufacturing-based economy rather than the state’s metropolitan centres.

Economy & Local Life

Higher education is the county’s largest economic anchor: Alfred University and SUNY Alfred State College, both in the village of Alfred, and Houghton University, in the hamlet of Houghton (town of Caneadea), together employ thousands and drive much of the county’s retail and housing demand. Dairy farming and other agriculture remain central to the towns outside those two college communities, and Cuba is long associated with dairy and cheese-making in the western part of the county. The county was also part of New York’s 19th-century petroleum boom, and small-scale oil and gas wells still dot the towns of Wirt, Bolivar, and Scio.

History

Allegany County was organized on April 7, 1806, formed by partitioning territory from Genesee County. Its name derives from a Lenape word for the Allegheny River, used by early European-American settlers to describe a trail running along that river to the south. The land had been Seneca territory before settlement began following the Revolutionary War. In the 1880s, the Bolivar–Richburg area at the county’s southern edge became one of the busiest oil-drilling districts in the country during the extension of Pennsylvania’s Bradford oil field north across the state line, a boom still remembered in hamlet names such as Petrolia.

Getting There

Interstate 86, the Southern Tier Expressway, crosses Allegany County east–west, with New York Routes 19, 21, 305, and 417 providing the main north–south and local connections.

• Wellsville — 70 miles southeast of Buffalo
• Alfred — 75 miles south of Rochester
• Belmont — 40 miles south of Warsaw, New York
• Cuba — 30 miles south of Batavia

The nearest large commercial airport is Buffalo Niagara International Airport, roughly 80 miles to the northwest; Wellsville Municipal Airport offers general-aviation service within the county.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Allegany County, New York?
It is in the Southern Tier of western New York, bordering Pennsylvania to the south.

What is the population of Allegany County?
46,456 people, according to the 2020 census.

How big is Allegany County?
1,034 square miles (2,680 km2), of which 1,029 square miles are land.

What is the county seat of Allegany County?
Belmont is the county seat.

How many towns and villages are in Allegany County?
The county has 29 towns and 10 incorporated villages, plus numerous unincorporated hamlets.

What ZIP codes are in Allegany County?
ZIP codes range across roughly two dozen post offices, including 14813 (Belmont), 14895 (Wellsville), 14802 (Alfred), and 14727 (Cuba); see the ZIP Codes section above for the full list.

What is Allegany County known for?
Its two colleges in Alfred, a rural dairy-farming economy, and a 19th-century oil boom around Bolivar and Richburg tied to Pennsylvania’s Bradford oil field.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in New York.