Tompkins County is located in central New York State, about 220 miles by road northwest of New York City. It lies on the boundary between two bioregions. In the northern part of the county, there is a flat plain characteristic of the Great Lakes region with the original forest cleared for agriculture. In the southern part of the county, the plain gives way to an elevated and largely wooded plateau about 1800 feet above sea level cut by several valleys. In the center of the county, Cayuga Lake, one of the deepest lakes in the eastern United States, slices deeply through the plains and plateau from well beyond the northern boundary of the county southward to its center. At the southern end of the lake, the city of Ithaca lies in a deep depression surrounded by the tall hills of the plateau and extends up the hillsides, cut by three spectacular gorges on the eastern side. Cornell University, one of Ithaca's two institutions of higher learning, sits between two of these gorges. On the southern side of the city, Ithaca College lies on a high hill. Other concentrations of population in Tompkins County include the villages of Dryden, Groton, and Trumansburg.
Tompkins County contains 94,000 inhabitants, of which 51,000 are concentrated in the City of Ithaca and its immediate surroundings. This dense population center with a desegregated pattern of land use allow Tompkins County to have an excellent public transportation network by American standards. Despite the threats of sprawl-based "development" posed by outside corporations unfamiliar with Ithaca's unusual setting and economy from time to time, it is still possible for most residents to easily work, shop, and enjoy natural settings without the use of private vehicles. Areas of natural beauty exist within walking distance of the city center, and rural areas of Tompkins County are unusually free from the scourge of suburban sprawl, with large tracts of unbroken forest and thriving populations of wildlife. In addition, although there is a quite large influx of college students, Tompkins County's population reflects a diversity of income and age groups not commonly found within a single community in more recently developed areas of the United States
