Cincinnati was a bustling frontier riverboat town and one of the largest cities in the nation when poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized it as the "queen city of the West." Although other cities farther west have since outstripped it in size, Cincinnati is still the Queen City to its inhabitants and to the many visitors who are rediscovering it. With a wealth of fine restaurants, a redeveloped downtown with Skywalk, its own Montmartre (Mount Adams), and the beautiful Ohio River flowing alongside it, Cincinnati has a cosmopolitan flavor uniquely its own.

Early settlers chose the site because it was an important river crossroads used by Native Americans. During 1788-1789, three small settlements—Columbia, North Bend, and Losantiville—were founded. In 1790, Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of Losantiville to Cincinnati in honor of the revolutionary officers' Society of the Cincinnati and made it the seat of Hamilton County. Despite smallpox, insects, floods, and crop failures, approximately 15,000 settlers came in the next five years. They had the protection of General Anthony Wayne, who broke the resistance of the Ohio Native Americans. In the early 1800s, a large influx of immigrants, mostly German, settled in the area.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Cincinnati boomed as a supplier of produce and goods to the cotton-growing South, and great fortunes were accumulated. During the Civil War, the city was generally loyal to the Union, although its location on the Mason-Dixon line and the interruption of its trade from the South caused mixed emotions. After the Civil War, prosperity brought art, music, a new library, and a professional baseball team. A period of municipal corruption in the late 19th century was ended by a victory for reform elements and the establishment of a city manager form of government, which has earned Cincinnati the title of America's best-governed city.

Today, the city is the home of two universities and several other institutions of higher education and has its own symphony orchestra, opera, and ballet. The redevelopment of Cincinnati's downtown area and the renovation of its riverfront into an entertainment and recreation center is appealing to visitors. Major hotels, stores, office complexes, restaurants, entertainment centers, and the Cincinnati Convention Center are now connected by a skywalk system, making the city easily accessible to pedestrians. One can still echo the words of Charles Dickens, who described the city in 1842 as "a place that commends itself...favorably and pleasantly to a stranger."