Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County.[5] The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border. With a 2006 population of 332,252, Cincinnati is Ohio's third largest city, behind Columbus and Cleveland, and the 56th largest city in the United States. The much larger metropolitan area which has a population of over 2 million is the second largest metropolitan region in Ohio (20th in the country[2] ) just behind Cleveland. Residents of Cincinnati are called Cincinnatians.

Cincinnati is considered to have been the first major American boomtown rapidly expanding in the heart of the country in the early nineteenth century to rival the larger coastal cities in size and wealth. As the first major inland city in the country, it is sometimes thought of as the first purely American city, lacking the heavy European influence that was present on the east coast. However, by the end of the century, Cincinnati's growth had slowed considerably, and the city was surpassed in population by many other inland cities.

Cincinnati is home to sports teams such as the Cincinnati Reds (the first professional baseball team) and the Cincinnati Bengals (an NFL team), as well as events like the Cincinnati Masters (the oldest tennis tournament in the United States played in its original city)[6],and the Thanksgiving day race (the second oldest race in the country-- after the Boston marathon). The city is also home to one of the oldest universities in the country the University of Cincinnati[citation needed]

Cincinnati is also known for having the largest collection of nineteenth-century Italian architecture in the U.S., primarily concentrated just north of Downtown, one of the largest historic districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places