Oswego County, New York

Oswego County is a county in New York, United States, about 35 miles northwest of Syracuse on Lake Ontario’s eastern shore. It had a population of 117,525 at the 2020 census, an estimated 117,953 by 2024, and covers 1,312 square miles (3,400 km2) centred near 43°28′N 76°12′W.

Oswego is the county seat and one of the county’s two cities; its postal code is 13126. The county holds 2 cities, 9 incorporated villages and 6 unincorporated communities across its 22 towns, and it runs on Eastern Time. Its FIPS code is 36075.

Towns & Villages in Oswego County

Oswego County has 17 named places on record: 2 cities, 9 incorporated villages and 6 Census-designated places with no local government of their own. CDP stands for census designated place. The county’s 22 towns are the civil divisions each municipality sits inside, the New York equivalent of a township elsewhere.

Three names repeat across the county’s two layers of government. Hannibal, Mexico and Constantia each name both an incorporated village or CDP and the larger town around it — a common pattern in New York, where a 19th-century village often kept its parent town’s name. Brewerton is a genuine straddler: the hamlet sits mostly in the Town of Cicero in Onondaga County, with its eastern edge reaching into Oswego County’s Town of Constantia, so the population figure above covers residents on both sides of the county line. This page’s older version also carried close to 200 additional names pulled from a federal places gazetteer — mobile-home parks, road corners and long-vacant rural crossroads such as Bardeen Corners, Kasoag and Otto Mills — with no population, ZIP or governing body attached to any of them. None could be verified against a current municipal or Census source, so they have been dropped rather than repeated as unconfirmed fact.

ZIP Codes

• 13126 — Oswego (also serves SUNY Oswego, just outside the city)
• 13069 — Fulton
• 13135 — Phoenix
• 13142 — Pulaski
• 13036 — Central Square
• 13114 — Mexico
• 13044 — Constantia
• 13115 — Minetto
• 13145 — Sandy Creek
• 13042 — Cleveland
• 13083 — Lacona
• 13074 — Hannibal
• 13131 — Parish
• 13302 — Altmar
• 13029 — Brewerton (shared with the Onondaga County side of the hamlet)

Sand Ridge has no ZIP of its own; mail there is delivered under a neighboring Schroeppel-area code. The rest of the county’s 26 ZIP codes serve hamlets and rural crossroads with no incorporated government of their own, among them 13132 Pennellville, 13167 West Monroe, 13076 Hastings, 13493 Williamstown, 13437 Redfield, 13028 Bernhards Bay, 13103 Mallory, 13121 New Haven, 13107 Maple View, 13426 Orwell and 13093 Lycoming.

Geography

Oswego County stretches from Lake Ontario’s eastern shore inland to the Tug Hill Plateau, a forested upland that climbs to about 1,550 feet near the county’s northeastern corner and catches some of the heaviest lake-effect snowfall in the eastern United States — more than 10 feet fell across parts of the county in the first two weeks of February 2007 alone, collapsing roofs and cutting several communities off. Of the county’s 1,312 square miles, 952 are land and 360 are water, a 27 percent water share driven mainly by Lake Ontario plus a slice of Oneida Lake’s northwestern corner, which reaches into the towns of Constantia and West Monroe. The Salmon River, the Oswego River and the Salmon River Reservoir cut through the county’s interior; the Oswego River empties into Lake Ontario at the city of Oswego, the feature that gave the county its name.

Jefferson County lies to the north, Lewis County to the northeast, Oneida County to the east, Madison County to the southeast, Onondaga County to the south, and Cayuga County to the southwest, with Lake Ontario forming the county’s western and northwestern edge. Jefferson County, Lewis County, Oneida County, Madison County, Onondaga County and Cayuga County all have pages on this site.

Demographics

Oswego County had a population of 117,525 at the 2020 census. The latest estimate, from 2024, puts the county at 117,953, essentially flat over the period. Oswego and Fulton are the county’s two largest communities, together accounting for roughly a quarter of its population. Median household income runs $69,183, well below New York State’s overall figure of $82,100. Population density works out to about 123 people per square mile of land, concentrated in the Oswego-Fulton corridor and thinning out sharply across the Tug Hill towns to the east.

Economy & Local Life

Retail trade employs the most workers in the county, about 7,248 people, followed closely by health care and social assistance at 7,208 and educational services at 6,082, out of roughly 53,500 total jobs countywide. Constellation Energy operates the Nine Mile Point and James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plants on a shared 900-acre site in the Town of Scriba, together one of the largest employers and taxpayers in the county. SUNY Oswego, on the Lake Ontario shore just outside the city, is another major employer and drives much of the local service economy. Fulton’s economy once centered on the Nestle chocolate plant that opened in the early 1900s as Peter Cailler Kohler and invented the Crunch bar in 1938, before closing in 2003; paper and packaging manufacturing, including the former Sealright and Black-Clawson plants, also shaped the city’s industrial history. Pulaski’s economy leans on salmon fishing: the Salmon River’s fall run and the Salmon River Festival each fall draw sportfishing visitors from across the Northeast.

History

New York organized Oswego County in 1816, its 48th county, carving it out of Oneida County and Onondaga County. Its name comes from a Mohawk-language word meaning roughly “the pouring-out place,” describing where the Oswego River empties into Lake Ontario. Fort Ontario, on the lakeshore at Oswego, changed hands repeatedly during the colonial wars and the War of 1812 before its most notable modern role: from August 1944 to February 1946 it sheltered about 982 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe, the only time the United States government took in a group of Holocaust refugees during the war. The Oswego Canal, completed in 1829, connected the city to the Erie Canal system and turned Oswego into a major Great Lakes port for grain and lumber traffic through the 19th century.

Getting There

Interstate 81 runs north-south through the county’s western towns. US Route 11 parallels it, and New York State Routes 3, 13, 48, 49, 69, 104, 104B and 481 (Veterans Memorial Highway) cover the rest of the county.

• Syracuse — about 35 miles south
• Watertown — about 40 miles north
• Rochester — about 85 miles west
• Utica — about 45 miles east

Syracuse Hancock International Airport, about 40 miles south of Oswego, is the nearest major commercial airport. Amtrak has no station in the county; the closest service is Syracuse’s William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Oswego County located?
It sits in north-central New York on Lake Ontario’s eastern shore, about 35 miles northwest of Syracuse, bordered by Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga and Cayuga counties.

What is the population of Oswego County?
117,525 at the 2020 census, with a 2024 estimate near 117,953.

How big is Oswego County?
1,312 square miles (3,400 km2), of which 952 square miles are land and 360 square miles are water.

What is the county seat of Oswego County?
Oswego, where the Oswego River meets Lake Ontario, is the county seat and one of the county’s two cities.

How many towns and villages are in Oswego County?
Two cities — Oswego and Fulton — plus nine incorporated villages: Phoenix, Pulaski, Central Square, Mexico, Sandy Creek, Cleveland, Lacona, Hannibal and Parish. Six Census-designated places round out the county’s larger named communities.

What ZIP codes does Oswego County use?
13126 for Oswego and 13069 for Fulton, plus separate codes for each village — including 13135 Phoenix, 13142 Pulaski, 13036 Central Square and 13114 Mexico — and about a dozen more for smaller hamlets.

What is Oswego County known for?
Lake Ontario salmon fishing centered on Pulaski and the Salmon River, the Nine Mile Point and FitzPatrick nuclear plants in Scriba, and Fort Ontario’s role sheltering Holocaust refugees in 1944-46.

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