Ohio

The good river

Ohio takes its name from the Ohio River. The river’s name comes from a Seneca word, usually translated as “good river” or “great river,” and the state was named after the river.

Out of the Northwest Territory

Ohio was formed from the Northwest Territory. A state convention at Chillicothe petitioned for admission in November 1802, and Ohio became the 17th state on March 1, 1803. But Congress never formally voted to ratify its admission. The oversight surfaced as the state prepared for its 150th anniversary, and on August 7, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making Ohio’s statehood official, retroactive to March 1, 1803.

Three capitals

Chillicothe, the seat of the Northwest Territory government since 1800, became Ohio’s first state capital. It sat on Zane’s Trace and the Scioto River and was then the largest town in the state. The legislature moved to Zanesville in 1810, returned to Chillicothe in 1812, and in 1816 settled in Columbus, then a small settlement but closer to the center of the state, where local landowners had donated land for the capitol grounds. Columbus has grown into Ohio’s largest city. Its Greek Revival Statehouse took from 1839 to 1861 to finish. The capital page tells the story.

The Buckeye State

Ohio’s nickname comes from the Ohio buckeye, a tree that grew widely in early Ohio and has been the state tree since 1953. No law formally adopts the nickname, but the flag law says the white “O” on the flag suggests it, and the official pledge to the flag promises “respect and loyalty” to “the buckeye state.”

That flag, adopted in 1902, is a swallowtail pennant, or burgee, the only state flag that is not a rectangle. Its 17 stars mark Ohio as the 17th state. See the flag page for what every part means.

A motto in court

Ohio’s motto, “With God, all things are possible,” was adopted in 1959 after a Cincinnati schoolboy proposed it. In the late 1990s the ACLU of Ohio challenged it in federal court. The case ended in 2001, when the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the motto constitutional.

Cardinals, carnations and tomatoes

Ohio has 29 official state symbols. The northern cardinal has been the state bird since 1933, and the scarlet carnation, adopted in 1904 in memory of President William McKinley, the state flower. Ohio loves its tomatoes: tomato juice became the state beverage in 1965 and the tomato the state fruit in 2009. The list also honors Ohio’s history, from the Adena pipe and the Newark Earthworks to the Wright brothers’ 1905 Flyer III, the state airplane since 2025, and the state rock song is “Hang On Sloopy.” See every symbol on the Ohio symbols page.

Land and people

Ohio covers 44,826 square miles, 34th among the states, including nearly 4,000 square miles of water. It had about 11.9 million residents in 2025, 7th in the country. Ohio borders Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan, and across Lake Erie it shares a water boundary with Canada. Columbus, with about 938,000 people, is the largest city, followed by Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Akron.