Ohio

Ohio is one of the leading manufacturing states in the USA. Aircraft and bomber parts for the US Air Force are produced in Columbus, Ohio, and car manufacturing was once a leading industry in Cleveland, Ohio, as suggested by this early photograph of a chassis paint shop.

The ‘O’ stands for Ohio and the 17 stars indicate that the state was the 17th to join the Union. The flag's distinctive shape is unique.

Locator map for the US state of Ohio.

State in northern central USA, bordered to the west by Indiana, to the north by Michigan's Lower Peninsula and Lake Erie, to the east by Pennsylvania, to the east and southeast by West Virginia, and to the southwest by Kentucky, the southeastern and southern borders being formed by the Ohio River; area 106,055 sq km/40,948 sq mi; population (2006) 11,478,000; capital Columbus. It is called the Buckeye State after the region's native tree. Ohio is part of the Midwest and comprises the eastern section of the Corn Belt. Western Ohio's level, verdant topography and thick fertile soils contrast with the southeast quarter of the state, which retains the more rugged hills and valleys of the Appalachian Plateau, along with its deposits of coal and oil. Ohio's economy is sustained by manufacturing, principally of steel, rubber, plastics, motor vehicles and parts, and industrial machinery, along with service-based industries. Cereals, livestock, and dairy foods are the main products of farmland in the west. The Cleveland-Akron consolidated area is the state's most populous metropolitan region; other major towns and cities include Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown, and Canton. Originally, Ohio was home to the Miami, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Huron peoples. It was explored for France by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle in 1669. Ceded to Britain by France in 1763, and to the USA after the American Revolution, the state was settled extensively in 1787 following the Northwest Ordinance. Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803 as the 17th US state.

Physical Ohio can be divided into five physical regions: the Unglaciated Appalachian Plateau, the Glaciated Appalachian Plateau, the Till Plain, the Lake Plain, and the Lexington Plain.

The Unglaciated Appalachian Plateau comprises southeastern Ohio. Its steep valleys and outcrops of bedrock are characteristic of the Appalachian Plateau, an elevated region, extending east into Pennsylvania and West Virginia, of rocks that have been eroded and dissected by rivers to create mountainous terrain. The Appalachian Plateau contains coal and oil deposits. Here, the Miami, Little Miami, Leading, Muskingum, Little Muskingum, and Scioto rivers drain southward into the Ohio River. This is the only region in Ohio that retains hardwood forests.

By contrast, the Glaciated Appalachian Plateau in central and northeastern Ohio has been smoothed by glaciers, which rounded the hills and broadened the valleys.

The low, flat Lake Plain region (200 m/650 ft), lies along Lake Erie's southern shore. The sandy beach ridges of this region represent shores of ancient glacial lakes formed before Lake Erie. The Till Plain region to the south covers the western half of Ohio, with elevations of 200–300 m/650–985 ft, gradually increasing eastward. The Till Plain contains rich soils deposited by glaciers; other glacial features include moraines, eskers, and outwash terraces. Campbell Hill, the state's highest point at 472 m/1,550 ft, was formed from successive layers of glacial moraines and lies northwest of Columbus. The Sandusky, Maumee, Grand, and Cuyahoga rivers flow northward across this region into Lake Erie.

On the southern border of Ohio, between the Till Plain in the west and the Unglaciated Appalachian Plateau in the east, sits a small, wedge-shaped region called the Lexington Plain. Here, underlying limestone creates fertile soils.

Ohio has over 20 natural lakes, and over 2,500 artificial lakes, some created in the 19th century to feed canals, others for flood control. The Ohio River, the state's southeastern and southern border, is the largest eastern tributary of the Mississippi River.

The climate in Ohio is similar to that across the north-central and eastern USA, with warm summers and cold winters, and relatively high rainfall.

Features The state is home to several important American Indian historical sites. SunWatch Prehistoric Fort Ancient Indian Village and Archaeological Park near Dayton is a National Historic Landmark and contains the largest and most completely excavated Hopewell Indian fortification in the USA. Miamisburg Mound is the largest conical burial mound in the state, and one of the largest in the country. The Newark Earthworks complex contains the Moundbuilders State Memorial, which preserves a large circular earthwork; Octagon Earthworks, which was used for ceremonial, social, and religious purposes in Hopewell culture; and a long segment of an earthwork wall known as Wright Earthworks Serpent Mound. Inscription Rock in Lake Erie Islands State Park at Port Clinton preserves prehistoric Indian pictographs, of which Leo Petroglyph at Columbus is an outstanding example. Flint Ridge State Memorial, near Glenford, contains an ancient flint quarry used by the Hopewell Indians.

Forts dating from the American Revolution include Fort Laurens State Memorial in Bolivar, built in 1778 as part of a campaign to attack the British at Detroit, and the provision fort of Fort Jefferson in Columbus, built in 1791. At Big Bottom near Columbus a battle between Ohio Company settlers and Delaware and Huron American Indians took place in 1791. Fort Recovery State Memorial commemorates General Wayne's defeat of the Miami American Indians and Fallen Timbers near Maumee. Forts associated with the War of 1812 include Fort Meigs in Perrysburg, built in 1813 to protect northwest Ohio and Indiana from British invasion, and Fort Amanda in Lima. Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, is Ohio's most famous War of 1812 monument.

The Campus Martius Museum in Marietta stands on the site of the first organized American settlement in the Northwest Territory and traces the story of migration in Ohio's history. Schoenbrunn Village in New Philadelphia preserves a Moravian church founded in 1772 as a mission to the Delaware American Indians and includes the original mission cemetery. Zoar Village was founded by German dissenters in 1817 and features many restored German-style buildings. The Greek Revival mansion of Glendower is located near Lebanon and features Empire- and early Victorian-style pieces.

Ohio was an important abolitionist state. The Underground Railroad Museum in Flushing tells the story of the extensive Underground Railroad network in the state. Stowe House, near Cincinnati, was the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, during the 1830s and now houses a museum dedicated to abolitionist history. Rankin House in Ripley was one of the most important stops on the Underground Railroad and is a National Historic Landmark. It preserves the home of Presbyterian minister John Rankin, founder of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Zanesville.

The National Road, one of the earliest arteries to the American West, is preserved at Norwich. The Ohio Historical Center in Columbus contains an 1880s carriage shop and several vintage cars. Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor features a permanent exhibit exploring labour, immigration, and urban history in the region. The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum has a collection of antique, vintage, and classic cars and aircraft documenting the development of the transport industry. The birthplace of Thomas A Edison is preserved in Milan. The Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park preserves the Wright Brothers Aviation Center, including the original 1905 Wright Flyer III.

Ohio has numerous presidential and political sites. The Ulysses S Grant Birthplace, a cottage dating from the early 1800s, still stands in New Richmond. The Rutherford B Hayes Home can be seen in Fremont. The James A Garfield National Historic Site preserves the former home of this assassinated president. The McKinley National Memorial in Canton commemorates President William McKinley. Sherman House in Lancaster preserves the birthplace of the Union general William T Sherman and his brother, US senator John Sherman.

Other important museums in Ohio include the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, which has an ice-age exhibition, and the Historical Society Museum, both located in an art deco train terminal known as Museum Center.

Ohio is home to hundreds of colleges and universities, including renowned institutions such as Case Western Reserve University and Oberlin College. Kent State University, one of the USA's largest university systems, gained international attention in 1970 when a National Guard unit opened fire on student protestors of the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, killing four.

Ohio has one national forest and nine state forests, of which Shawnee-Roosevelt State Forest is the largest. There are sandy beaches at East Harbor State Park and Crane Creek State Beach Park along Lake Erie.

Culture Ohio was an important industrial state and is associated with a Midwestern Rustbelt culture. Many Ohioans have German, Scots-Irish, Italian, or Eastern European ancestry. Many black Americans migrated to Ohio from the Deep South, seeking work in the steel industry and in other areas of manufacturing. Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus have become centres of black American culture. Central and southwestern Ohio are more rural in character and have a largely white, conservative, Midwestern farming culture. There are several Shaker and Amish communities near Lebanon and at Shaker Heights.

Ohio has several art museums that are nationally recognized. Cleveland is home to a major art museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, featuring major European, US, Islamic, African, ancient, medieval, and contemporary collections. The museum's Asian and pre-Columbian collections are ranked among the finest in the world. The Toledo Museum of Art has a comparable range of world-famous painting, sculpture, and decorative arts. Springfield Museum of Art has a mainly 19th-century US permanent collection. The Akron Art Museum focuses on modern and contemporary art exhibitions, as does the Contemporary Art Museum in Cincinnati.

Cleveland is also famous for its symphony orchestra, considered one of the best in the USA. Ohio's Music Festival at Blossom Music Center is held in the summer and features concerts, ballet, and popular music programmes. The Playhouse Square Center is the second-largest performing arts centre in the USA. Cleveland is also home to the Karamu House African-American Theater. The National Afro-American Museum near Dayton explores black American musical genres.

Major folk events include the Ohio State Fair at Columbus and the Ohio Scottish Games in Oberlin. The Ohio Hills Folk Festival takes place annually in Quaker City.

Ohio boasts several professional teams. Cinergy Field is home to the historic Cincinnati Reds, the oldest professional baseball team in the USA, and the Cincinnati Bengals American football team. The Cleveland Indians are a major-league baseball team, the Cleveland Browns a football team, and the Cleveland Cavaliers a basketball team.

Government Ohio's state constitution Ohio's first constitution was drafted and ratified in 1802. A revised version, ratified in 1851, is still in use today, with amendments from 1912 and 1933. Alongside the constitution, the 1953 Ohio Revised Code, a list of statutes passed by the general assembly, defines the functions and rules of local government today.

Structure of state government Ohio's state legislature, the General Assembly, is made up of a House of Representatives, whose 99 members serve no more than four consecutive two-year terms, and a 33-member Senate. State senators serve no more than two consecutive four-year terms. Ohio sends two senators and 18 representatives to the US Congress. The state has 20 electoral votes in presidential elections.

Since 1912, there has been provision for popular initiatives and referenda to ratify laws and constitutional amendments proposed by the General Assembly. Politically, Ohio is a ‘swing state’, whose decisions can have a key role in deciding which way a US presidential election goes. Since 1892, Ohio has been won by all successful presidential candidates, with the exceptions of 1944 and 1960. The state has also provided eight US presidents.

The governor is Ohio's chief executive, elected to a four-year term, along with the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer of state, auditor of state, and attorney general. All posts can be held for no more than two consecutive four-year terms.

Ohio's Supreme Court is the principal judicial body. Its chief justice and six justices are elected to six-year terms. Below the Supreme Court are 12 district courts of appeals, each presided over by a panel of three judges. Below the appellate courts are 88 courts of common pleas, and the municipal, county, and mayors courts. A court of claims, with judges selected by the Supreme Court, hears all cases comprising claims against the state.

Ohio has 53 counties, 132 cities and municipalities, and 31 townships and villages.

Economy Ohio's location in the heart of the nation's industrial belt, and its access to inland waterways and interstates, have given the state a strong economic advantage. The Ohio River is a major tributary of the Mississippi. In 1825 the Erie Canal linked Lake Erie with the Hudson River, and later, in 1959, the Welland Ship Canal was built from Lake Erie to the St Lawrence Seaway.

Along with Pennsylvania, Ohio was the nation's leading manufacturer of steel and was at the centre of the car industry throughout much of the 20th century. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, Ohio suffered, along with other Rustbelt states, from a declining manufacturing sector, unemployment, and pollution.

The 1990s saw the reversal of these trends, with the growth of a broadly defined service sector. Global markets and diversification have also led to renewed growth in the manufacturing sector which has risen steadily since the 1990s. Ohio is a major producer of transportation equipment and durable goods, such as steel, rubber, plastics, and fabricated metals. The state also produces manufacturing equipment, industrial machinery, and chemicals.

While agriculture makes up a tiny proportion of Ohio's economy, its livestock, dairy, and cereal products remain a fixture of the state's output and a strong influence on the landscape.

History Indigenous peoples Evidence of American Indian presence in Ohio dates back 7,000 years with burial mounds, including the Fort Ancient, Serpent Mound, and Mound City Group sites, built by the prehistoric Adena and Hopewell peoples. By the 16th and 17th centuries, Ohio was home to mostly Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribes, including the Miami, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Delaware Indians, although the Iroquois maintained a hunting presence in Ohio which periodically drove these tribes off their land. The Miami Indians, living in the Maumee Valley, were the most powerful tribe in Ohio. The Shawnee were fierce warriors, the most famous of whom was Tecumseh.

Exploration and settlement Ohio was explored for France by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle in 1669, and was ceded to Britain by France in 1763 after the French and Indian War, the North American arm of the Seven Years' War. In the American Revolution, reacting to the incursions of American frontiersmen, most Indians sided with the British, and their opposition to US control (after 1783) did not end in Ohio until after the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers. Most tribes subsequently surrendered their land in Ohio in the Treaty of Greenville.

After the American Revolution, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the area north of the Ohio River as the Northwest Territory and the claims of eastern states on land there were surrendered to the territory's new central government, although Connecticut (the Western Reserve) and Virginia (the Virginia Military District) reserved lands to compensate their soldiers or those who had lost property to British action. Marietta, capital of the Northwest Territory, was founded in 1788 and was the first US settlement in Ohio. A general assembly was elected for the Northwest Territory, but Ohio inhabitants clamoured for self-government, and in 1802 the Ohio Constitutional Convention was convened to draft a constitution. Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803.

Early statehood During the War of 1812, important engagements occurred at Fort Meigs, near Toledo, and Put-In-Bay, in Lake Erie. After the war, heavy settlement began, spurred especially by hard conditions in New England. In the 1820s, the completion of the Erie Canal brought increased commerce to the Great Lakes, causing growth in Cleveland, Ashtabula, Toledo, and other lakeside communities.

During the same period, extension of the National Road through central Ohio, and the building of canals connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio River, spurred growth throughout the state. In the 1850s the boom in railway building further linked the state with the East and with Chicago and the growing Great Lakes region.

Although initially settled as an agricultural territory, Ohio soon began to industrialize after statehood. It has large coal deposits, along with iron, sand, clay, and other basic materials, providing the resources for iron-, glass-, ceramic-, and wood-based manufacturing. An influx of workers to these developing industries meant that by 1850 Ohio was the third most populous state in the USA.

Civil War During the Civil War, Ohio gave the Union its greatest generals: Ulysses S Grant, W T Sherman, and P Sheridan. The state's proximity to Virginia across the Ohio River and its location on Lake Erie made it a corridor for the Underground Railroad.

Reconstruction and industrialization During Reconstruction, Ohio became a political force, from the election of Ulysses S Grant as president in 1868 to subsequent presidents Rutherford B Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison. It was at this time, when the iron ranges of Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula became accessible via the lakes, and the size of the coal reserves in the Ohio-Pennsylvania region was recognized, that Ohio became an industrial giant.

In the 1870s, J D Rockefeller of Cleveland organized the Standard Oil Company, which soon controlled oil refining and distribution throughout the nation. At the same time, Akron became rubber capital of the world. The growth from the 1900s of the motor industry, based in nearby Detroit, involved Ohio; the state quickly became, and has remained, a major maker of car parts and assembler of vehicles. All this development made Ohio central to the US economy, a position it retains despite the disappearance of much of its heavy industrial base since World War II and the general decline of the Rustbelt states in the latter half of the 20th century.

Famous people sport Cy Young (1867–1955), baseball player; Jack Nicklaus (1940– ), golfer

the arts Zane Grey (1872–1939), Western author; Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941), writer; James Thurber (1894–1961), humorist; Hart Crane (1899–1932), poet; Lillian Gish (1899–1993), actor; Henry Mancini (1924–1994), composer; Paul Newman (1925–2008), actor; Toni Morrison (1931– ), Nobel Prize-winning author; Steven Spielberg (1947– ), film director; Halle Berry (1966– ), actor

science Thomas Edison (1847–1931), scientist and inventor; Orville Wright (1871–1948), co-inventor of the aeroplane; John Mauchly (1907–1980), physicist; Neil Armstrong (1930– ), astronaut

politics and law Tecumseh (1768–1813), American Indian chief; William T Sherman (1820–1891), general; Ulysses S Grant (1822–1885), 18th president of the USA; Rutherford B Hayes (1822–1893), 19th president of the USA; James Garfield (1831–1881), 20th president of the USA; Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901), 23rd president of the USA; William McKinley (1843–1901), 25th president of the USA; William H Taft (1857–1930), 27th president of the USA; Warren Harding (1865–1923), 29th president of the USA; John Glenn (1921– ), senator and astronaut.

Ohio

River in east-central USA, 1,579 km/981 mi long and 365–1,220 m/1,200–4,005 ft wide; the second-largest tributary of the Mississippi; navigable throughout its length. It is formed by the union of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and flows southwest to join the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois.

The Ohio and its tributaries drain an area of 528,100 sq km/203,900 sq mi. Its course separates the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois from West Virginia and Kentucky. Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, are the chief cities on its banks; other settements include Wheeling, Huntington, Covington, Steubenville, and Evansville. Flooding has periodically damaged the river communities, most severely in 1937. Waterfalls interrupt the Ohio's flow at Clarksville, Indiana, near Louisville.

Navigable from Pittsburgh, the river carries twice the freight tonnage of the Panama Canal – bulk cargoes such as iron ore, oil, chemicals, metals, salt, sand, gravel, and, especially, coal from West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, and the eastern Ohio fields. River commerce is shared by its principal branches, the Tennessee, Cumberland, Wabash, and Greyn.

The first European presence was the French explorer La Salle in 1669; this became the basis of France's claim to the area, which saw it at war with the British in the 1750s. Between 1780 and 1830, it was the main routeway in the settlement of the midwestern states. The 1803 Lewis and Clark expedition started down the Ohio. The first federal lock and dam were erected on the Ohio, in 1885. Dams have damaged the river's ecosystem, with freshwater mussels being particularly badly affected.