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Useful Notes / Ohio

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Not entirely accurate. They grow soy too! (large version)

"If you're such a big shot, how come I've never heard of you?"
"I'm... from Ohio."
— A cliched joke

Ohio, the Buckeye State,note  is the seventh-most populous state in the United States, and is often stereotyped as boring, rural farm country. This isn't a total lie—there is at least one working farm in all 88 counties—but it's not the whole truth either. With over 11 million people, Ohio is the densest state outside the Atlantic coast. It has six cities of 100,000 or more; three of which—the "Big C's" Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland—have metro areas in the millions. As such, Ohio is more diverse in people and belief than most outsiders realize.

Most of its major cities are known for their industrial base, with the notable exception of Columbus. Like elsewhere in the Great Lakes region, current major cities started as industrial towns that grew along trade routes and attracted job-seeking immigrants from all over. Irish, Germans, and African Americans are the largest ethnic groups in the state, and the major cities also house significant Eastern European, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and AfricanFun Fact populations as well. The strong presence of racial minorities and a long legacy of labor unions have given Ohio's urban and working-class suburban areas a Democratic lean, though Republicans perform strongly in the more well-off suburban and rural areas (although, like the rest of the country, the suburban coalitions began to invert around the 21st century). This combined with Ohio's size made it a battleground state during election seasons. Presidential candidates on both sides will make an effort to appeal to Ohio, and since the state has voted for the winning president all but three times (in 1944, 1960 and 2020) since 1896—the longest "winning streak" in the nation—this makes the political furor that much more intense. However, the state has become staunchly Republican in recent years due to the party's consolidation of working-class support.

Unfortunately, the state was hit hard when industrial and manufacturing companies left the Great Lakes region around the 1970s, and most of its cities except Columbus (more on that later) became Dying Towns and Wretched Hives overnight. The low employment led to high crime rates that the state still struggles to contain. However, The New '10s have seen some improvement in this regard, as the cities have been trying to base their economies around health care, education, finance, technology, etc.

After Virginia, Ohio is the state with the second most presidents born within its borders, with seven — all late-19th to early 20th century Republicans (Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft, Harding),note  and is also the birthplace of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon. Other luminaries include fellow astronaut and long-time Democratic Senator John Glenn (the namesake of Columbus's airport), James Thurber, and a number of professional athletes, actors, and musicians. The United States Air Force maintains two bases in Ohio, one in Toledo and one in Dayton, the latter being where the 1998 Dayton Peace Accords were signed and the location of the Air Force's National Museum.

The state is generally divided into five regions:

  • Northeast: By far the most populous and urbanized region, this is where you'll find Cleveland along with the smaller metropolises of Akron, Canton, and Youngstown (the former two cities are included in Cleveland's CSA and TV market, while the latter is its own metro area and TV market). Akron is the "Rubber Capital" of America, as Firestone and Goodyear both got their start here, forming the backbone of the city's industrial base. Both companies have long since moved manufacturing elsewhere, though Goodyear's corporate headquarters is still here. Even though Cleveland and Akron are technically separate metro areas, they're less than an hour apart and close enough to effectively function as one, not unlike Washington, D.C. and Baltimore (in fact a number of hotels in northern Summit County identify as being in the Cleveland area rather than the Akron area despite being in the same county as the latter city, this also occurs for a number of hotels in Streetsboro, located in Portage County, which is also technically in the Akron MSA which as mentioned above is in the Cleveland CSA; one of the communities in northern Summit County, Richfield, once served as the home for several sports teams branding themselves as being from Cleveland, notably the Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association). Then there's Canton, where in 1920, a handful of semi-professional football teams from all over Ohio (and one from Illinois) met to form the American Professional Football Association, now known as the NFL. The Pro Football Hall of Fame & Museum is in Canton for this reason, and the city hosts the NFL's annual preseason Hall of Fame Game. As for Youngstown, it used to be a steel town until the abrupt closure of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in 1977, which laid off 5,000 workers and cost the city an additional 400 satellite businesses and 35,000 manufacturing jobs connected to them, an event known locally as "Black Monday." Since then, the city has been trying to rebrand itself as a college town since it isn't known for much else these days other than crippling poverty and the crime that comes with it. Northeast Ohio, much like neighboring Pennsylvania, is also notorious for getting loads of snow in the winter thanks to Lake Erie's effect on the weather. The "Snow Belt" starts around here and extends to Buffalo, New York.
  • Northwest: Home of Toledo—a war was fought with neighboring Michigan over the territory.note  From this is born a rivalry between two universities — The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan — and two states.note  As for Toledo itself, the city's chief industry was glass and it was popularly known as "The Glass City," but like elsewhere in the Midwest, Toldeo's days as a manufacturing giant are a distant memory. You'll also find some popular summer getaways here like Cedar Point, generally considered the best amusement park in the country, sometimes the world. There's also Kelley's Island, a popular island and resort town in Lake Erie. Fans of Glee may be interested to know that Lima is located in this region as well, though the real city is unsurprisingly nothing like on the show (there are no palm trees, for starters). Has a tendency to have very wet summers, as it was formerly known as the Black Swamp and had to be drained by ditches and canals before it could be settled en masse.
  • Southwest: Anchored by Cincinnati, this region culturally includes Northern Kentucky (where its main airport is located) and a tiny bit of Indiana due to Cincy's metro area extending into both states. Cincy has a better reputation and economic outlook than Cleveland, which isn't hard to accomplish, but the city has a mediagenic glamor that most of Ohio lacks; quite a few TV shows, movies, and books are set here. It also has a solid counter-park to Cedar Point in Kings Island (both owned by the same company). Dayton is in this region as well, hometown of Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the modern airplane (though their first flight was in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina). Several institutions are named after the Wright Brothers, including the city's main airport and public university, and aviation technology is a big field here. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, home of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, is located 10 miles northeast of the city. Cincinnati is also home to Union Terminal, an art-deco train station that was the artistic basis for the Hall of Justice (Cincy-based Taft Broadcasting owned Hanna-Barbera at the time, and several HB artists visited Taft's corporate headquarters, likely explaining the similarities). In a case of full-circle irony, stock footage of Union Terminal was used as a Hall of Justice-esque building by The CW's Arrowverse crossover event Invasion!.
  • Southeast: Welcome to Coal Country. Sparsely populated, Southeast Ohio lacks an urban presence other than the college town of Athens, home of Ohio University. It is part of the larger Appalachia region and culturally has more in common with neighboring West Virginia than the rest of Ohio. Mining, natural gas, and lumbering are the order of the day. Unlike much of rural Ohio, this area was historically a Democratic stronghold thanks to the strength of the miners' unions, though clashes between the labor and environmentalist wings of the Democratic Party have pushed it (along with much of Appalachia) into the Republican camp. The region is also known for its beautiful scenery, as it is the only part of Ohio to avert The Mountains of Illinois trope (as most of the rest of Ohio was flattened by glaciers). Hiking, hunting, and camping are popular here.
  • Central: This region is essentially the Columbus Metro Area. As mentioned earlier, Columbus is an anomaly among Ohio cities. Its economy is centered around the state government and The Ohio State University, the largest college in the U.S. by enrollment, rather than any specific industry at the mercy of economic trends. Snarkier observers refer to Columbus as the world's largest college town, but on the other hand, it hasn't been subjected to the Midwest's usual woes. For this reason, along with the city's low cost of living and relatively low crime, Columbus is becoming increasingly attractive to young professionals looking to build their lives. Not only is it the largest city proper in Ohio in both physical size and population, but as of the 2020 census, it has surpassed Cleveland as the state's second-largest metro area, and it's expected to overtake Cincinnati within the decade.

Notable People

People from Cleveland and Toledo (including their surrounding areas) can be found in those cities' pages.
    People from Ohio 

Works that feature Ohio (excluding works set in Cleveland since it has its own page):

    Ohio Media 
  • Anomalisa - The movie focuses on an author who is in Cincinnati for a customer service conference.
  • The Edge of Night – Although set in the fictional Midwestern city of Monticello, the Cincinnati skyline stood in for that of Monticello for the large majority of the series run.
  • Family Ties - Set in the suburbs of Columbus.
  • Forgotten Ohio - An online collection of Ohio folklore and urban legends.
  • Glee - Set in Lima, and numerous references are made to other Ohio cities.
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer: Filmed and set in Cincinnati.
  • Ma - The town is never named, but all the cars have Ohio license plates.
  • Rifts - Roughly 2/3 of the state are part of a vast untamed wilderness called The Federation of Magic which is named for the high concentration of magic users and ley lines present in the area. The southern half of Ohio in particular is also home to several important settlements such as the mage haven city of Dweomer.
  • Shivers (1995) - An old Sierra game that takes place in a haunted museum in Mt. Pleasant.
  • The Simpsons - The episode "The Road To Cincinnati" focuses on Skinner and Chalmers taking a road trip to an educator conference in Cincinnati. The titular city itself only appears near the very end but plays a very important role in the climax of the story.
  • The Walking Dead - Most of the last major story arc takes place in a large Ohio settlement called The Commonwealth.
  • WKRP in Cincinnati - A show that ran from the late 70s to early 80s about a radio station in Cincinnati.
  • Wild Hogs - The movie opens in Cincinnati and features four middle-aged guys going on a cross country road trip on motorcycles.
  • Hillbilly Elegy - A memoir about growing up in poverty as part of the Appalachian diaspora in Middletown.
  • Gummo - Set in Xenia after the town has been destroyed by a tornado. (About half of the real town was wiped off the map by a 1974 tornado.)
  • Captain Underpants - Set in Piqua. The city was chosen due to its now discontinued annual Underwear Festival.
  • Tommy Boy - The film focuses on Sandusky.
  • InCryptid: The third book, Half-Off Ragnarok, and part of the fourth book, Pocket Apocalypse, as well as the novella The Measure of a Monster are all set in and around Columbus.
  • Heathers - Set in the fictional city of Sherwood, Ohio
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Set in the fictional city of Springwood, Ohio
  • Ready Player One: Set in a dystopian Columbus
  • Liberal Arts - The movie is set in Ohio. No exact place mentioned but it was shot in Kenyon College, which is in Gambier.
  • The Kings of Summer
  • Agnes is set in a trailer park somewhere in Ohio, although it's never mentioned exactly where.
  • Rain Man - Part of the movie is set in Cincinnati.
  • Black Widow (2021) - The Distant Prologue sees Natasha, Yelena, Melina, and Alexei on a mission in Ohio pretending to be a family.
  • Little Giants - Set in Urbania.
  • Scott The Woz is set in the creator's native Ohio, and the state is not spared from the show's offbeat sense of humor.
  • White Noise (2022)- while the original novel never specifies a location, in the film adaptation, College-On-The-Hill is located in Ohio, and was shot on-location in the state.

Way to go Ohio.

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