We give several new characterizations of Riordan Arrays, the most important of which is: if {d_n,k}_n,k∈N is a lower triangular arraywhose generic element d_n,k linearly depends on the elements in a well-defined though large area of the array, then {d_n,k}_n,k∈N is Riordan. We also provide some applications of these characterizations to the lattice path theory.