Cincinnati
Discover Cincinnati
A concise introduction to Cincinnati, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Cincinnati sits in a bowl of hills on the north bank of the Ohio river, facing Kentucky, and it grew rich early — it was the sixth-largest city in the United States by 1850, built on river trade and on pork processing at such a scale that it was known as Porkopolis.
That money and the German immigration that came with it left Over-the-Rhine, a district of Italianate tenements, breweries and a nineteenth-century market hall that is among the largest surviving urban historic districts in the country. It was near-derelict for decades and has been substantially restored. Findlay Market still trades six days a week. The riverfront below downtown holds the ballpark, the football stadium, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, placed deliberately on the river that enslaved people crossed to reach a free state.
The city’s art museum and the Taft are both free, the Cincinnati Symphony plays at Music Hall, and the zoo is one of the oldest in the country. Cincinnati chili — a thin, cinnamon-spiced meat sauce served over spaghetti and buried in shredded cheese — is a genuine local institution that visitors find baffling and residents do not. The inclines that once carried people up the hills are gone, but the views from Mount Adams and Eden Park remain.