Lima ( LY mÉ™) is a city in Allen County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It had a population of 35,579 at the 2020 census. The city is located in northwest Ohio along Interstate 75, approximately 72 miles (116 km) north of Dayton, 78 miles (126 km) southwest of Toledo, and 63 mi (101 km) southeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Lima was founded in 1831. It is the principal city of the Lima metropolitan area, which had 102,000 residents in 2020 and is included in the Lima, Van Wert, Wapakoneta combined statistical area. The Lima Army Tank Plant, officially called the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, was built in 1941 and is the sole producer of the M1 Abrams tank.
At a Glance
- County: Allen County
- County seat of Allen County
- State: Ohio
History of Lima
In the years after the American Revolution, the Shawnee were the most prominent residents of west central Ohio, growing in numbers and permanency after the 1794 Treaty of Greenville. By 1817, the United States had created the Hog Creek Reservation for the local Shawnee, covering portions of what would become Allen and Auglaize counties, and including part of present day Lima.
The creation of the Shawnee reservation freed other lands in the area for settlement, and in February 1820, the Ohio legislature formally established Allen County. In 1831, the Shawnee were forced to surrender all their land in the area to the United States and relocated to Kansas, opening all of Allen County to settlement. The Ohio legislature mandated that a county seat be established and "Lima" was the result.
Lima was named after Lima, Peru’s capital city. The name was reputedly chosen in a nod to the Peruvian capital which, during the 1800s, was a major source of quinine, an anti malaria drug for which there had been a demand in the region, an area known as the Great Black Swamp.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Lima, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.