New England Uplands

The topography of the New England Uplands section is that of a maturely-dissected plateau with narrow valleys, and the entire area is greatly modified by glaciation.

It is the most widespread of the geomorphic sections in the New England Province, extending from Canada through New England down to the Seaboard section and extending southwestward through New York and New Jersey as two narrow upland projections, the Reading Prong and the Manhattan Prong.

Glaciation has resulted in the erosion and rounding off of the bedrock topography and numerous rock basin lakes.

The surface of the New England Uplands slopes southeast from maximum inland altitudes around 670 meters (2,200 feet), excluding the other mountainous sections of the province, to about 122 to 152 meters (400 to 499 ft) along its seaward edge at the narrow coastal Seaboard section, which goes down to sea level.

The mountains and valleys that make up the Highlands are part of a relatively long, linear, and narrow regional geological feature that averages 16 to 32 kilometers (9.9 to 19.9 miles) in width, with a maximum width of 40 kilometers (25 miles), and extends in a southwest–northeast trending direction for nearly 225 kilometers (140 miles), from southeastern Pennsylvania near Reading to southwestern Connecticut near Danbury, where it joins the Taconic Mountains and Housatonic Highlands of the New England Uplands plateau.