New York State is both urban and rural: it is the home of both the most populous city in the United States and the largest park in the lower 48 states. It is a geographic crossroads, the only state that borders both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, New England and the Midwest, and both Quebec and Ontario. New York is a cultural crossroads, shaped by American Indians, abolitionists, feminists, and religious and ethnic groups of every persuasion and variety.