The towns and cities of New York's Capital District were created by the U.S. state of New York as municipalities in order to give residents more direct say over local government. The Capital District is an 11 county area, which consists of the counties of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schoharie, Warren, Washington, Columbia, Montgomery, Fulton, and Greene. New York experimented with different types of municipalities before settling upon the current format of towns and cities occupying all the land in a county. Districts were created for Albany and Tryon counties in 1772; all were transformed into towns (or divided into multiple towns) in 1788 when all of the state of New York was divided into towns. Two years before that, in 1786, all of what Washington County encompassed at that time was divided into townships with the same legal status, abilities, and responsibilities as districts with their status as towns confirmed in 1788. Some other forms of government in earlier years included land patents with some municipal rights and boroughs. The following timelines show the creation of the current towns from their predecessors stretching back to the earliest municipal entity over the area. The timelines only represent from which town(s) a particular town was created from and does not represent annexations of territory to and from towns that already existed. All municipalities are towns unless otherwise noted as patent, township, borough, district, or city. Unless otherwise sourced with a footnote all dates of incorporation represent those stated in the 1860 Gazetteer of the State of New York by John H. French.
<br />[2] = A part of Albany County until 1798, then part of Ulster County until 1800 when Greene County was formed.
<br />[9] = A part of Ulster County. <br />[10] = A part of Ulster County until 1800 when Greene County was formed.
<br />[3] = A part of Washington County until 1813 when Warren County was formed. <br />[4] = A part of Warren County.