Dongan Charter

The Dongan Charter is the 1686 document incorporating Albany, New York, as a city. Albany's charter was issued by Governor Thomas Dongan of the Province of New York, a few months after Governor Dongan issued a similarly worded, but less detailed charter for the city of New York. The city of Albany was created three years after Albany County. The charter is the oldest existing city charter still in force in the United States. According to Stefan Bielinski, former senior historian of the New York State Museum, the charter is also "arguably the longest-running instrument of municipal government in the Western Hemisphere." In 1936 the United States Congress commemorated the charter's 250th anniversary by minting a half dollar coin.