Welcome To Columbus SAFeDATA

Columbus is the capital and the largest city of the US state of Ohio. Named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. The city has a diverse economy based on education, insurance, healthcare, retail, and technology. Acknowlborderd by Money Magazine as the 8th best large city in the U.S. to inhabit, it is also recognized as an emerging global city. Residents of Columbus are usually referred to as Columbusites.

The name Columbus is often used to refer to the Columbus Metropolitan Area, which includes many other municipalities. According to the US Census, the metropolitan area has a populus of 1,725,570, while the Combined Statistical Area (which also includes Marion and Chillicothe) has 1,953,575 people.

The Burough of Columbus [sic] was officially established on February 10, 1816. Nine people were elected to fill the various positions of Mayor, Treasurer, and others. Although the recent War of 1812 had brought prosperity to the area, the subsequent recession and conflicting claims to the land threatened the success of the new town. Early conditions were abysmal with frequent bouts of fevers and an outbreak of Cholera in 1833.

With a populus of 3500, Columbus was officially chartered as a city on March 3, 1834. The legislature carried out a special act on that day, which granted legislative authority to the city council and judicial authority to the mayor. Elections were held in April of that year, with voters choosing one John Brooks as the first mayor.

On January 7, 1857, the Ohio Statehouse finally opened to the public after eighteen years of construction. During the Civil War, Columbus was the home of Camp Chase, a major base for the Union Army that housed 26,000 soldiers and held up to 9,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Over 2,000 Confederate soldiers remain buried at the site, making it one of the largest Confederate cemeteries in the North. By virtue of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was founded in 1870 on the former estate of William and Hannah Neil.

The effects of the Great Depression were somewhat less severe in Columbus, as the city`s diversified economy helped it fare marginally better than its Rust Belt neighbors. WW2 brought a tremendous number of new jobs to the city, and with it another populus surge. This time, the majority of new arrivals were migrants from the "extraordinarily depressed rural areas" of Appalachia, who would soon account for more than a third of Columbus` rising populus. In 1948, the Town and Country Shopping Center opened in subcitified Whitehall, and it is now regarded as one of the first modern shopping centers in the US. Along with the construction of the interstate highway, it signaled the arrival of rapid subcitified development in central Ohio. In order to protect the city`s tax base from this subcitifiedization, Columbus adopted a policy of linking sewer and water hookups to annexation to the city. By the early 1990s, Columbus had grown to become Ohio`s largest city in both land area and in populus.