Why does Pensylvania have a notch near its border with New York?

Answer 1

if you mean the tilted but straight edged vee shape that comprises part of the border between northwestern Pennsylvania & western New York just southeast of the city of Erie pa

as i am guessing you do

rather than any of the wiggly vees that also comprise part of the border between pa & ny along the Delaware river much farther to the east & owe their somewhat more irregular shapes to the various switchbacks of the river that forms the border there

then i will tell you

until the 1780s this vee did not exist

& the roughly triangular part of pa to the west of it along Lake Erie actually belonged to ny til then too

in fact the present long north border of pa continued straight west past the vee in those days til it met the west border of pa in a nice square corner

but this gave pa only a few miles of lakeshore cutting obliquely across that corner

& when in order to resolve a dispute between pa & ny it was decided by the us govt

that ny could not extend farther west than the westernmost point of lake Ontario

ny was required to give the entire triangular area up to the us govt

& the us govt then turned around & sold it to pa for a bit more than 150 thousand dollars since pa really needed the extra lakeshore that this added

for purposes of industry & trade etc

Answer 2

Hfg