Signed state highways in New York, referred to as "touring routes" by the New York State Department of Transportation, are numbered from 1 to 899.

Initially, there were only 29 routes; by the late 1920s, there were several dozen highways.

Since that time, routes have been added and removed from the state highway system at various times for reasons ranging from the construction and/or removal of highways to the result of "maintenance swaps", or transfers of highway maintenance from the state of New York to lower levels of government and vice versa.

State-maintained portions of routes have reference markers, small, green signs that are posted approximately every one-tenth mile along the side of the roadway.

The 900 through 999 designations are reserved for reference routes, which are unsigned state-maintained highways of varying length.