Free rides on the parks' six historic carousels are part of life in Binghamton, which calls itself the Carousel Capital of the World and sits where the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers meet, in the southern tier of upstate New York. It is also the home of the spiedie, a marinated meat sandwich the locals will happily defend, and of Binghamton University, which keeps the downtown restaurants and rental market busy.
The city itself has about 46,000 people, and the metro is several times that. Costs are low for the Northeast, and you can find inexpensive houses. Winters are snowy and gray, and the rivers have flooded badly before, in 2006 and 2011, so flood alerts matter. Crime is somewhat above average for a small city, mostly theft. Ithaca and the Finger Lakes are under an hour away.
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- Known as
- Carousel Capital of the World; Parlor City; Valley of the Three Rivers; Home of Binghamton University; Birthplace of the spiedie
- Founded
- 1800 settled (Chenango Point); 1834 incorporated as a village named for William Bingham; 1867 chartered as a city
- Languages
- English; Spanish; Chinese; Russian; Arabic; Korean (university and refugee communities)
- Airports
- Greater Binghamton/Edwin A. Link Field (BGM), about 8 miles northwest in Maine, NY; Ithaca Tompkins International (ITH), about 45 miles northwest; Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International (AVP), about 65 miles south; Syracuse Hancock International (SYR), about 75 miles north
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20%; bars $1-2 per drink; taxis and rideshare 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhops $2-5 per bag; counter service optional
About this data
Population is Census QuickFacts Vintage 2025 (46,418); land area 10.48 sq mi from Census; median value and rent from Census ACS 2020-2024. Metro figure 247,598 is the 2020 Census count for the Binghamton NY MSA (Broome and Tioga counties; Binghamton is the anchor city; a newer estimate was not retrieved). Visitor site and events calendar URLs were seen in search results. Elevation, coordinates, founding details, event names and months, hotel ranges, tipping, cost-of-living index, crime rate and airport distances are approximate or from general knowledge and not verified. Lower confidence overall; URLs not load-tested.
