Hudson

River in northeastern USA; length 485 km/300 mi. It rises in the Adirondack Mountains and flows south, emptying into a bay of the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. The Hudson forms the boundary between New Jersey and New York, and the states are linked by bridges and tunnels. The New York Barge Canal system links the Hudson to Lake Champlain, Lake Erie, and the St Lawrence River. It is navigable by small ocean-going vessels as far upstream as Albany and Troy, about 150 mi/240 km from its mouth, and for eight months of the year barge traffic can reach the Great Lakes.

The Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano reached its mouth in 1524, and the river was explored upstream as far as modern Albany in 1609 by the English navigator Henry Hudson, after whom it is named. On its western shore are the Catskill Mountains, and near its mouth, the Palisades, a vertical rock face.

The Hudson has been placed on the Most Endangered Rivers list several times. In August 2001, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that 2 million cubic m/70.6 million cubic ft of sludge contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) released into the river by the General Electric Company prior to the chemical ban in 1977, must be removed. Dredging could begin by 2002 and the operation, the largest environmental dredging in US history, will cost GEC US$460 million.

The scenery of the Hudson River valley inspired a school of landscape painters in the 19th century.