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State of Ohio
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Flag of Ohiosvg
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Flag Of Ohio
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Seal_of_ohiogif
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Map of USA OHsvg
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The Buckeye State, <br /> "Birthplace of Aviation"
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With God, All Things Are Possible
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Columbus
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Columbus
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Cleveland
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Ted Strickland (D)
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George V Voinovich (R) <br /> Sherrod Brown (D)
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OH
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English ''de facto''
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34<sup>th</sup>
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44,825
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116,096
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40,986
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106,154
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3,878
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10,044
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87
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7<sup>th</sup>
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11,353,140
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9th
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27726
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10705
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17<sup>th</sup>, <br/>declared retroactively on<br /> August 7 1953
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March 1 , 1803
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-5/ -4
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38°󈐀′ N to 41°󈐣′ N
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80°󈐇′ W to 84°󈐙′ W
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220
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355
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220
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355
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Campbell Hill 1
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1,550
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472
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853
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260
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Ohio River
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455
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139
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US-OH
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(/) is a
Midwestern State of the
United States Of America . Part of the
Great Lakes Region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads. At the time of European contact and in the years which followed,
Native Americans in today's Ohio included the
Iroquois ,
Miamis , and
Wyandots . Beginning in the 1700s, the area was settled by people from New England, the Middle States, Appalachia, and the upper south.
Prior to 1984, the
2005 Ohio also has the highest density of population of any state not on the
Atlantic Ocean .
Ohio was the first state admitted to the Union under the
Northwest Ordinance . Its
U.S. Postal Abbreviation is ; its old-style abbreviation was '''O.''' Natives of Ohio are known as ''Ohioans''.
The name "Ohio" derives from the and
Allegheny River .
2Mithun, Marianne. 1999. ''Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg. 312
345
outside
Federal Hall in lower
Manhattan ]]
See Also: History of Ohio
After the so-called
Beaver Wars , the powerful
Iroquois confederation of the
New York -area claimed much of the Ohio country as a hunting and, probably most importantly, a beaver-trapping ground. After the devastation of epidemics and war in the mid-1600s, which had largely emptied the Ohio country of indigenous people by the mid-to-late seventeenth century, the land gradually became repopulated by the mostly
Algonquian -speaking descendants of its ancient inhabitants, that is, descendants of the
Adena ,
Hopewell , and
Mississippian cultures. Many of these Ohio-country nations were multi-ethnic and sometimes multi-linguistic societies born out of the earlier devastation brought about by disease, subsequent social instability,
Iroquois . They subsisted on agriculture (
Corn ,
Sunflower s,
Bean s, etc.) supplemented by seasonal hunts. By the 1650s they were very much part of a larger global economy brought about by fur trade.
The indigenous nations to inhabit Ohio in the historical period (most clearly after 1700), included the
Miamis (a large confederation),
Wyandots (made up of refugees, especially from the fractured
Huron confederacy),
Delawares (pushed west from their historic homeland in New Jersey),
Shawnee s (also pushed west, although they may be descended from the
Fort Ancient people of Ohio),
Ottawas (more commonly associated with the upper Great Lakes region),
Mingo s (like the Wyandot, a recently-formed composite of refugees from Iroquois and other societies), and
Eries (gradually absorbed into the new, multi-ethnic "republics," namely the Wyandot).
Ohio country was also the site of Indian massacres, such as the Yellow Creek Massacre (
Chief Logan ) and
Gnadenhutten .
During the 18th century, the
French set up a system of trading posts to control the
Fur Trade in the region.
In 1754, France and
Great Britain fought a war known in the United States as the
French And Indian War . As a result of the
Treaty Of Paris , the French ceded control of Ohio and the rest of the
Old Northwest to Great Britain.
Pontiac's Rebellion in the 1760s challenged British military control, which ended with the American victory in the
American Revolution . In the
Treaty Of Paris in 1783 Britain ceded all claims to Ohio to the United States.
The
United States created the
Northwest Territory under the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Slavery was not permitted. Settlement began with the founding of
Marietta by the
Ohio Company Of Associates , which had been formed by a group of American Revolutionary War veterans. Following the Ohio Company, the
Miami Company (also referred to as the "
Symmes Purchase ") claimed the southwestern section and the
Connecticut Land Company surveyed and settled the
Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day
Northeast Ohio . The old Northwest Territory originally included areas that had previously been known as
Ohio Country and
Illinois Country . As Ohio prepared for statehood,
Indiana Territory was created, reducing the Northwest Territory to approximately the size of present-day Ohio plus the eastern half of the
Lower Peninsula Of Michigan and the eastern tip of the
Upper Peninsula .
Under the
Northwest Ordinance , any of the states to be formed out of the Northwest Territory would be admitted as a state once the population exceeded 60,000. Although Ohio's population numbered only 45,000 in December 1801,
Congress determined that the population was growing rapidly and Ohio could begin the path to statehood with the assumption that it would exceed 60,000 residents by the time it would become a state. On
February 19 1803 ,
President Jefferson signed an act of Congress that approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution. However, Congress never passed a resolution formally admitting Ohio as the 17th state. The current custom of Congress declaring an official date of statehood did not begin until 1812, with
Louisiana 's admission as the 18th state. Although no formal resolution of admission was required, when the oversight was discovered in 1953, Ohio congressman
George H. Bender introduced a bill in Congress to admit Ohio to the Union retroactive to
March 1 1803 . At a special session at the old state capital in
Chillicothe , the Ohio state legislature approved a new petition for statehood that was delivered to Washington, D.C. on horseback. On
August 7 1953 (the year of Ohio's 150th anniversary),
President Eisenhower signed an act that officially declared
March 1 1803 the date of Ohio's admittance into the Union.
Eight U.S. presidents hailed from Ohio at the time of their elections, giving rise to the nickname "Mother of Presidents", a sobriquet it shares with
Virginia . Seven presidents were born in Ohio, making it second to Virginia's eight, but Virginia-born
William Henry Harrison and his grandson,
Benjamin Harrison , (who also lived part of his adult life in Indiana) settled in, led their political careers from and/or were buried in
North Bend, Ohio on the family compound, founded by William's father-in-law
John Cleves Symmes .
In 1835, Ohio fought a mostly bloodless boundary war with
Michigan over the Toledo Strip known as the
Toledo War . Congress intervened and, as a condition for admittance as a state of the Union, Michigan was forced to accept the western two-thirds of the
Upper Peninsula , in addition to the eastern third that was already part of the state, in exchange for giving up its claim to the Toledo Strip. (A war between two states may be unusual, but the Toledo War is not unique; Pennsylvania and Maryland fought
Cresap's War over a border dispute a century earlier.)
Ohio's central position and its population gave it an important place during the Civil War, and the Ohio River was a vital artery for troop and supply movements, as were Ohio's railroads. At the end of the Civil War, three top Union generals were all from Ohio: Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. Ohio also contributed more soldiers per-capita than any other state in the Union.
In 1912 a Constitutional Convention was held with
Charles B. Galbreath as Secretary. The result reflected the concerns of the Progressive Era. It introduced the initiative and the referendum, allowed the General Assembly to put questions on the ballot for the people to ratify laws and constitutional amendments originating in the Legislature as well. Under the Jeffersonian principle that laws should be reviewed once a generation, the constitution provided for a recurring question to appear on Ohio's general election ballots every 20 years. The question asks whether a new convention is required. Although the question has appeared in 1932, 1952, 1972, and 1992, it has never been approved. Instead constitutional amendments have been proposed by petition to the legislature hundreds of times and adopted in a majority of cases.
See Also: :Category:History of Ohio
Ohio's
Capital is
Columbus , located close to the center of the state.
Governor Ted Strickland took office as governor in January 2007. Ohio has 18 seats in the
United States House Of Representatives .
.]]
Ohio's geographic location has proved to be an asset for economic growth and expansion. Because Ohio links the Northeast to the Midwest, much cargo and business traffic passes through its borders on its well-developed highways. Ohio has the nation's 10th largest highway network, and is within a one-day drive of 50% of North America's population and 70% of North America's manufacturing capacity.
"Transportation delivers for Ohio" , Ohio Department of Transportation, retrieved
2005 . which allows for numerous seaports. Ohio's southern border is defined by the
Ohio River (with the border being at the 1793 low-water mark on the north side of the river), and much of the northern border is defined by Lake Erie. Ohio's neighbors are
Pennsylvania to the east,
Michigan to the northwest,
Ontario to the north,
Indiana to the west,
Kentucky on the south, and
West Virginia on the southeast.
Ohio's borders were defined by
Metes And Bounds in the
Enabling Act Of 1802 as follows:
Note that Ohio is bounded by the Ohio River, but nearly all of the river itself belongs to Kentucky and West Virginia. In
1980 , the
U.S. Supreme Court held that, based on the wording of the cessation of territory by
Virginia (which, at that time included what is now Kentucky and West Virginia), the boundary between Ohio and Kentucky (and by implication, West Virginia) is the northern low-water mark of the river as it existed in 1792.
''Ohio v. Kentucky,'' 444 U.S. 335 (1980) Ohio has only that portion of the river between the river's 1792 low-water mark and the present high-water mark.
The border with Michigan has also changed, as a result of the Toledo War, to angle slightly northeast to the north shore of the mouth of the Maumee River.
Much of Ohio features glaciated plains, with an exceptionally flat area in the northwest being known as the
Great Black Swamp . This glaciated region in the northwest and central state is bordered to the east and southeast first by a belt known as the
Glaciated Allegheny Plateau , and then by another belt known as the
Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau . Most of Ohio is of low relief, but the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau features rugged hills and forests.
The rugged southeastern quadrant of Ohio, stretching in an outward bow-like arc along the Ohio River from the West Virginia Panhandle to the outskirts of Cincinnati, forms a distinct socio-economic unit. Known somewhat erroneously as Ohio's "Appalachian Counties" (they are actually in the Allegheny Plateau), this area's
2006 . True summation of Ohio Appalachia counties population (1,476,384) obtained by adding the 29 individual county populations together (
July 1 2005 data). Percentage obtained by dividing that number into that table's estimate of Ohio population as of
July 1 2005 (11,464,042)
Significant rivers within the state include the
Cuyahoga River ,
Great Miami River ,
Maumee River ,
Muskingum River , and
Scioto River . The rivers in the northern part of the state drain into the northern
Atlantic Ocean via
Lake Erie and the
St. Lawrence River , and the rivers in the southern part of the state drain into the
Gulf Of Mexico via the
Ohio and then the
Mississippi . The worst weather disaster in Ohio history occurred along the Great Miami River in 1913. Known as the
Great Dayton Flood , the entire Miami River watershed flooded, including the downtown business district of
Dayton . As a result, the
Miami Conservancy District was created as the first major flood plain engineering project in Ohio and the United States.
6
were not the economic fiasco that similar efforts were in other states. Some cities, such as Dayton, owe their industrial emergence to location on canals, and as late as 1910 interior canals carried much of the bulk freight of the state.
The climate of Ohio is a
Humid Continental Climate (
Koppen Climate Classification ''Dfa'') throughout most of the state except in the extreme southern counties of Ohio's
Bluegrass Region section which are located on the northern periphery of the
Humid Subtropical Climate and
Upland South region of the United States. Summers are hot and humid throughout the State, while winters are generally cool to cold. Precipitation is moderate year-round. Severe weather is not uncommon in the State as it is a battleground between cold
Arctic air and warm
Gulf air for much of the year, although there are fewer
Tornado es in Ohio than in states more to the west. Severe
Lake Effect Snow storms are also not uncommon on the southeast shore of
Lake Erie , which also provides a moderating effect on the climate there.
Although predominantly not in a subtropical climate, some warmer-climate flora and fauna does reach well into Ohio. Evidencing this climatic transition from a
Subtropical to
Continental climate, several plants such as the Southern magnolia ''(
Magnolia Grandiflora )'',
Albizia Julibrissin (mimosa),
Crepe Myrtle , and even the occasional
Needle Palm are hardy landscape materials regularly used as street, yard, and garden plantings in the
Bluegrass Region of Ohio; but, these same plants will simply not thrive in much of the rest of the State. This interesting change may be observed while traveling through Ohio on Interstate 75 from
Cincinnati to
Toledo ; the observant traveler of this diverse state may even catch a glimpse of Cincinnati's common
Wall Lizard , one of the few examples of permanent "subtropical" fauna in Ohio.
In the state of Ohio, the overall temperature is very warm. Most of the state is in the humid continental climate. Ohio's summers average in the upper 80's or lower 90's for much of the state. Ohio's winters are very cold which average in the mid to upper 30's. Excessive heat warnings and flash flood warnings are not uncommon to the state of Ohio in the summer. And you should expect heavy snow and cold temperatures in the winter, especially if you live in the southeast border of Lake Erie, the lake effect is the most severe in that particular part of the state.
The highest recorded temperature was 113 °F (45 °C), near
Gallipolis on
July 21 1934 .
The lowest recorded temperature was -39 °F (-39 °C), at
Milligan on
February 10 1899 .
See Also: List of cities in Ohio
City and metropolitan data are from the US Census Bureau's 2006 estimates.
