THE MADISON COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Glaciated Low Allegheny Plateau setting.
Madison County has 654.9 square miles of land in New York. 4 mapped landscape regions meet across Madison County: Glaciated Low Allegheny Plateau, Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges, Ontario Lowlands, among others.
Rolling hills, broad valleys and low mountains are mantled by glacial deposits. Sandstone, shale and siltstone underlie a mix of open land and woodland across the northern plateau.
Regional context: Northern Allegheny Plateau ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Madison County intersects 4 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Glaciated Low Allegheny Plateau49.7%
- Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges30.9%
- Ontario Lowlands18%
- Mohawk Valley1.3%
Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands in Madison County
Glacially shaped lowlands and irregular plains border the Great Lakes and adjacent hills. The lakes influence regional weather, while local landforms reflect both glacial deposits and former shorelines.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Madison County
The atlas lists 28 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Madison County, including Brookfield, Sullivan, Cazenovia. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Madison County by land and water
The Census records 6.44 square miles of water within Madison County, or 1% of its total area. That share is close to Madison County’s 1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Madison County has 639.5 times the land area of nearby Morrisville village (1.02 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Chenango County, Cortland County, Oneida County, Onondaga County, Oswego County, Otsego County within New York. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

