The term “tri-state area” is sometimes used less specifically referring to just the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Other times the term refers to all of the US regions that span across these 3 states. More often though, people think they’re talking about a “region”, when really they mean an inter-connected metropolitan region spanning these 3 states and maybe 8 or 9 million people at best. Sure it’s big, but it’s not an even more giant region spanning 10+ states as many seem to believe – those would be mega regions like California or Texas.