The "rubber capital of the world" is 35 miles south of the St. Lawrence Seaway, on the highest point on the Ohio and Erie Canal, covering an area of approximately 54 square miles. Metropolitan Akron has many manufacturing plants, as well as strong service, trade, and government sectors. Although best known for its rubber factories, housing corporate headquarters of four major rubber companies, Akron also is a center for polymer research.

Akron owes its start to the Ohio and Erie Canal, which was opened to traffic in 1827. General Simon Perkins, commissioner of the Ohio Canal Fund, seeing the trade possibilities, laid out the town two years earlier. The seat of Summit County was already thriving when Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich organized the first rubber plant in 1870. This event aroused little interest, and it took the "horseless carriage" to spark the future of Akron. By 1915, it was a boom town. The major rubber companies maintain large research laboratories and developmental departments. Other products range from fishing tackle to plastics and industrial machine products.