BROOME

county, south-central New York state, U.S., comprising a hilly upland region bordered by Pennsylvania to the south. It is drained principally by the Susquehanna River (which crosses the southern part of the county twice) and by the Tioughnioga, Otselic, and Chenango rivers. Parklands are located at Chenango Lake, Oquaga Creek, and Whitney Point Reservoir. County forestlands feature a mix of hardwoods, notably upland oak. Indians of the Iroquois Confederacy inhabited the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Binghamton (the county seat), Johnson City, and Endicott are known collectively as the Triple Cities. The region benefited from the linking of the Erie and Chenango canals (1837) and the arrival of the Erie Railroad (1848). The State University of New York at Binghamton was founded in 1946. Broome county was created in 1806 and named for the American Revolutionary leader John Broome. The main economic activities are manufacturing (electronic and electrical equipment), services, and retail trade. Area 707 square miles (1,831 square km). Pop. (1990) 212,160; (1996 est.) 201,553. town and port, northern Western Australia, on the north shore of Roebuck Bay (an inlet of the Indian Ocean). This part of the coast was explored in 1688 and 1699 by the English adventurer and buccaneer William Dampier, whose report on the barren conditions discouraged later settlement. It was not until the discovery of pearl-oyster beds offshore in 1883 that the site was settled and named for Sir Frederick Napier Broome, governor (188391). It became the centre of a prosperous pearling trade, which declined in the 1930s and collapsed with the advent of plastics in the '50s. There remains some fishing for immature oysters to supply cultured pearl farms at Kure Bay, 250 miles (400 km) northeast. Situated on the Great Northern Highway to Perth (1,390 miles southwest), Broome now serves the cattle-grazing Kimberley district. The town's meatworks ships its output from a 2,700-foot (825-metre) jetty, built to overcome the difficulties presented by a 30-foot tidal range. Offshore drilling for oil and natural gas is an important local industry. The terminus of a submarine cable from Java (1889), Broome was attacked by the Japanese during World War II. Pop. (1991) 8,906.