The main campus in Vestal is spread over 930 acres (3.8 km2) on a wooded hillside above the Susquehanna River; geographically, the Southern Tier of New York is located on Allegheny Plateau, a physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains.[27] The campus is shaped like a brain: the primary road on campus creates a closed loop to form the cerebrum and cerebellum, and the main entrance road creates the spinal cord which leads up to a traffic circle (representing the medulla). The main road is thus frequently referred to as The Brain. The connector road, which goes behind the Mountainview and College-in-the-Woods residential communities, is closed for a portion of the year (in late fall and early spring, to allow for safe migration of salamanders across the road).