City of Cincinnati

Downtown Cincinnati

Hard-core football fans—and even casual fans last season—know that Cincinnati is the home of the AFC Champion Bengals, who barely lost the Super Bowl LVI to the Los Angeles Rams.

There’s also the historic Cincinnati Reds baseball team, the relatively new FC Cincinnati pro soccer team, the Cincinnati Cyclones hockey squad and the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, Xavier University Musketeers and Northern Kentucky University Norse—three NCAA schools that have had their share of sports success.

But as you can imagine, there’s much more to Greater Cincinnati than sports.

Travel to cities across the nation, and people will ask you about Cincinnati’s famous Mediterranean-spiced chili, with Skyline and Gold Star the most widespread and best-known. They might also have heard of other iconic brands, including Frisch’s restaurants, Graeter’s ice cream, Montgomery Inn ribs or LaRosa’s pizza.

Large festivals and destinations provide entertainment galore for both residents and tourists alike, all drawing from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands in attendance, from home, boat and auto shows to the Flying Pig Marathon, Taste of Cincinnati and BLINK art and light show.

Cincinnati is known as the Queen City, Porkopolis, Cincy and the City of Seven Hills. Yes, Cincinnati is hilly (bring your walking shoes).

The city, with a population of 308,935, is composed of 52 neighborhoods—one for every lifestyle. The metropolitan area of eight counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana contains another 136 jurisdictions of 1,000 or more population. And the Census counts 2.259 million people in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area.

By Bill Ferguson Jr.