Albany ( AWL-bÉ™-nee) is the capital and oldest city in the U.S. state of New York, and the seat of and most populous city in Albany County. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about 10 miles (16 km) south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. The city is the economic and cultural core of New York State's Capital District, a metropolitan area including the nearby cities and suburbs of Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga Springs. With an estimated population of 1.1 million in 2013, the Capital District is the third most populous metropolitan region in the state. As of 2023, Albany's population was 101,228. The Hudson River area was originally inhabited by Algonquian-speaking Mohican. The area was settled by Dutch colonists, who built Fort Nassau in 1614 for fur trading and Fort Orange in 1624. In 1664, the English took over the Dutch settlements, renaming the city Albany in honor of the Scottish title of the Duke of York (later James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland): the Duke of Albany. The city was officially chartered in 1686 under English rule. It became the capital of New York in 1797 after the formation of the United States. Albany is the oldest surviving settlement of the original British thirteen colonies north of Virginia. In the late 18th century and throughout most of the 19th, Albany was a center of trade and transportation. The city lies toward the north end of the navigable Hudson River. It was the original eastern terminus of the Erie Canal, connecting to the Great Lakes, and was home to some of the earliest railroads in the world. In the 1920s a powerful political machine controlled by the Democratic Party arose in Albany. In the latter part of the 20th century, Albany's population shrank because of urban sprawl and suburbanization. In the 1990s, the New York State Legislature approved for the city a US$234 million building and renovation plan, which spurred redevelopment downtown. In the early 21st century, Albany's high-technology industry grew, with great strides in nanotechnology.