The city of Ithaca (named for the Greek island of Ithaca in Homer's Odyssey) sits on the southern shores of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York.

The valley in which Cayuga Lake is located is long and narrow, with a north-south orientation. Ithaca was founded on flat land just south of the lake — land that formed in fairly recent geological times when silt filled the southern end of the lake. The city ultimately spread to the adjacent hillsides, which rise several hundred feet above the central flats: East Hill, West Hill, and South Hill. Since the lake valley was deepened by glaciation during the last ice age, its sides are fairly steep, and a number of the streams that flow into the valley from east or west have cut deep gorges, usually with several waterfalls.

Ithaca experiences a moderate continental climate, with cold, snowy winters and sometimes hot and humid summers. The valley flatland has slightly milder weather in winter, and occasionally Ithacans experience simultaneous snow on the hills and rain in the valley.

The natural vegetation of the Ithaca area, seen in areas unbuilt and unfarmed, is northern temperate broadleaf forest, dominated by deciduous trees. Among these, maples are particularly common. Steep hillsides seen from a distance resemble a curtain of green from late May through September, show bright fall colors in October, and are a display of gray trunks and branches, often with a white snowy background, from November through early May.

The economy of Ithaca is based on education and tourism, with some manufacturing. The city is home to Cornell University, which overlooks the town from East Hill, and Ithaca College, similarly situated on South Hill (Ithaca College is actually situated in the Town of Ithaca, not the City [see "Local government," below]; parts of Cornell are also in the Town, or in the neighboring municipality of Cayuga Heights). The student population is very high, as almost 20,000 students are enrolled at Cornell, with an additional 6,300 students at Ithaca College. The Ithaca City School District, which encompasses Ithaca and the surrounding area, enrolls about 5,500 K-12 students in eight elementary schools, two middle schools, Ithaca High School, and the Lehman Alternative Community School.

Tourists come largely for the natural scenery, including three gorges within the city limits and three in nearby state parks. Visitors also enjoy Cayuga Lake, hiking trails, and visits to wineries in lakeside vineyards found north and west of the city.

With some level of success, Ithaca has tried to maintain a traditional downtown shopping area that includes the Ithaca Commons pedestrian mall and Center Ithaca, a small mixed-use complex built at the end of the urban renewal era. Therefore, some in the community regret that downtown has lost vitality to two expanding commercial zones to the northeast and southwest of the old city. These areas contain an increasing number of large retail stores and restaurants run by national chains. Others say the chain stores boost local shopping options for residents considerably, many of whom would have previously shopped elsewhere, while increasing sales tax revenue for the city and county. The tradeoff between sprawl and economic development continues to be debated throughout the city and the surrounding area. (Another commercial center, Collegetown, is located next to the Cornell campus. It features a number of restaurants, shops, and bars, and an increasing number of high rise apartments.)

Ithacans support a popular farmer's market, a professional theater, a civic orchestra, much parkland, a science museum for children, and a new paleontological museum.

Politically, the city's population as a whole tilts to the left, especially when compared to the conservative region of Upstate New York that surrounds it. Ithaca has many of the businesses characteristic of small American university towns: used bookstores, art house cinemas, craft stores, and vegetarian restaurants. The collective Moosewood Restaurant, founded in 1973, was the wellspring for a number of vegetarian cookbooks; Bon Appetit magazine ranked it among the thirteen most influential restaurants of the twentieth century.

The dominant local newspaper in Ithaca is a morning daily, the Ithaca Journal, founded 1815. The paper is owned by Gannett, Inc., publishers of USA Today. Other local print publications include the Ithaca Times, the Cornell Daily Sun, the Ithacan, and the Tattler. (The latter three are run by student staffs at Cornell University, Ithaca College, and Ithaca High School, respectively.) Local residents often subscribe to out-of-town papers as well. The Post Standard of Syracuse and the New York Times are popular among many community members.

Ithaca is also home to one of the United States' first local currency systems, Ithaca Hours, although it has failed to catch on among most residents and critics question its utility and purpose.

The name "Ithaca" actually designates two governmental entities in the area. The Town of Ithaca is one of the nine towns comprised by Tompkins County. The City of Ithaca is surrounded by, but legally independent of, the Town of Ithaca. Other non-municipal areas within the Town of Ithaca identified by the US Census Bureau as census-designated places are:

• East Ithaca
• Forest Home
• Northeast Ithaca
• Northwest Ithaca
• South Hill

The Town of Ithaca is bordered by other towns of Tompkins County as follows:

• Enfield to the west
• Ulysses to the northwest
• Lansing to the northeast
• Dryden to the east
• Danby to the south
• Newfield to the southwest

For census and income data on the two municipalities called "Ithaca" see Ithaca (city), New York and Ithaca (town), New York.

Ithaca is in the rural Finger Lakes region about 250 miles to the northwest of New York City; the nearest larger cities, Binghamton and Syracuse, are an hour's drive away by car.

Ithaca is served by Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, located about three miles to the northeast of the city center. US Airways Express offers flights to New York LaGuardia and Philadelphia using a mixture of small jets and propeller craft. Northwest Airlink provides twice-daily service to Detroit Metro airport. Many residents travel to Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Greater Binghamton Airport, Elmira-Corning Regional Airport or Greater Rochester International Airport for more service options.

Ithaca lies at over a half hour's drive from any interstate highway, and all car trips to Ithaca involve at least some driving on two-lane state rural highways. There is frequent intercity bus service by Greyhound, Adirondack Trailways, and Shortline (First Transit), particularly to New York City. Tompkins Consoldiated Area Transit operates thirty nine public transit routes. GADABOUT Transportation Services, Inc. provides demand -response paratransit service for seniors over 60 and people with disabilities. Ithaca Dispatchand Finger Lakes Taxi provide local and regional taxi service. Ithaca Airline Limousine connects to the airport. Regional short haul freight trains use the valley's rails.

Although Ithaca is considered by many to be a very desirable place to live, it also faces some problems. One key problem is transportation. As a growing urban area, Ithaca is facing rapid increases in levels of vehicular traffic on the city grid and on the state highways. The city is at the convergence of many regional two-lane state highways: Routes 13, 13A, 34, 79, 89, 96, 96B, and 366.

Ithaca is one of a few small urbanized areas in the US without direct access to the American Interstate highway system. At one point, it was planned to convert Route 13 from Horseheads to Cortland through Ithaca into an expressway (it is currently an expressway only for three miles heading north from Ithaca), but the plan quickly fell out of favor. Occasionally suggestions or proposals to connect Ithaca to the Interstate system still are made, but it seems highly unlikely that this would happen any time in the foreseeable future.

The City's emphasis is on traffic management and better using the existing road capacity rather than building new roads. The Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council is the coordinating body for federal and state funded transportation projects covering Ithaca.

One positive trend for the health of downtown Ithaca is the new wave of increasing urban density in and around the Ithaca Commons. But as multi-story mixed-use projects (of offices, hotels, shops, parking and residences) are built, traffic congestion around the Commons will progressively increase.

Retail development trends in the city have created traffic pressure in neighborhoods. In the late 1990's, the City decided to encourage "big box" retail development in an area known as the Southwest. To influence traffic traveling through neighborhoods, the City Government adopted traffic plans to introduce traffic calming elements on City roads including, traffic tables at intersections, mini traffic circles, traffic humps, and a traffic rotary. (These “traffic calming devices” are unpopular among many drivers from Ithaca and the surrounding areas, and are a common local subject of criticism and satire.) The City also rebuilt a bridge over Six Mile Creek.

In 2005, Mayor Peterson emphasized pedestrian and bicycle circulation, safety education and traffic enforcement. Highly publicized pedestrian-vehicle and bicycle-vehicle accidents have focused attention on these traffic conflicts. Underfunding of sidewalk construction and maintenance are basic pedestrian infrastructure issues facing the City.

Ithaca is the center of an extensive public transportation system — Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) — which carried 2.8 million passengers in 2004. TCAT was reorganized as a non-profit corporation in 2004 and is primarily supported locally by Cornell University, the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County. Ithaca's public transportation system is one of the most extensive systems for a city of its size in the nation. Some see this as a big asset to the community, being good for the environment while serving low-income residents and other people without cars. Others feel the system is excessive and wasteful, with many lightly traveled routes (it is very common to pass a completely empty or almost empty TCAT bus while driving in the area).

The near-disappearance of grocery stores from neighborhood areas (replaced by larger stores in the commercial strips) has made it harder for Ithacans without cars to shop for food.

For decades, the Ithaca Gun Company dumped lead near Fall Creek (a tributary of Cayuga Lake) and Ithaca Falls. A major clean-up effort sponsored by the United States Superfund took place from 2002 to 2004.

Since the Tompkins County Assessment Department re-assesses property values annually, significant increases in property values in the City cause burdens to property owners facing higher local property taxes for the Ithaca School District, City of Ithaca and Tompkins County. House shopping is very competitive.

• Hans Bethe, resident, physicist
• Richard Feynmann, resident, physicist
• Alex Haley, native, author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family

• City of Ithaca's municipal Web site
• Wikitravel article on Ithaca