Montgomery County, New York the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.8%) is water. Montgomery County is located in the central part of the state, west of the city of Schenectady and northwest of Albany. The Erie Canal runs through Montgomery County parallel to the Mohawk River, connecting to the Wood River to the west, which leads to Lake Ontario. Overall, the canal connected Great Lakes shipping with the Hudson River and the port of New York on the Atlantic Ocean. Several towns and villages developed along the canal, as it carried much trade and passenger traffic during
Erie Canal which is navigable upstream to the New York Barge Canal's Black Rock Lock and thence to the Canal's original "Western Terminus" at Buffalo's Inner Harbor. The growth of railroads and highways across the state, and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, caused commercial traffic on the canal to decline dramatically during the second half of the 20th century. In 1992, the New York State Barge Canal was renamed the New York State Canal System (including the Erie, Cayuga-Seneca, Oswego, and Champlain canals) and placed under the newly created New York State Canal Corporation, a subsidiary of the New York