National Ohio Day Date in the current year: November 2, 2025

Ohio is a Midwestern state bordered by Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Lake Erie. The state is named after the Ohio River, which gets its name from the Seneca language and can be translated as “great river”, “good river”, or “large creek”. Ohio’s nickname, the Buckeye State, refers to the state’s native Ohio buckeye trees (Aesculus glabra). Ohio is also known as the “Birthplace of Aviation” because the Wright brothers lived and worked in Dayton.

During the pre-colonial era, the Ohio River Valley, also known as the Ohio Country, was inhabited by various indigenous peoples. In the 17th century, control of the region and its fur trade was disputed in the Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars.

These wars were a series of conflicts between the Iroquois Confederacy and rival Indigenous nations, such as the Huron, Algonquin, and Erie, as well as European colonial powers, such as the French. Armed with firearms from Dutch and later English traders, the Iroquois launched expansionist campaigns to seize hunting grounds and dominate trade routes, driven by the desire to control the profitable fur trade.

By the late 1600s, much of Ohio Country had been depopulated, becoming a vast hunting territory for the Iroquois and a zone of movement for displaced tribes. In the 18th century, however, new Indigenous groups, such as the Delaware, Miami, and Shawnee, moved into the region. They formed a complex network of alliances and rivalries influenced by the growing presence of European powers.

In the mid-18th century, France and Britain both sought control of the area due to its strategic location between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The French claimed the area as part of New France and established forts and trading posts to secure their influence. However, British traders soon arrived from the east. This competition culminated in the French and Indian War, which historians generally consider to be part of the Seven Years’ War.

France lost the war and, in accordance with the 1763 Treaty of Paris, ceded its lands east of the Mississippi River, including the Ohio Valley, to Great Britain. The British treated the region as Native American land and explicitly forbade colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. Following their defeat in the American Revolution, the British transferred control of the Ohio Country to the newly independent United States.

The United States originally administered the area as part of the Northwest Territory, which was established in 1787. In 1800, the Indiana Territory was split from the Northwest Territory in preparation for Ohio’s statehood. Ohio was formally admitted to the Union as the 17th state on March 1, 1803.

National Ohio Day is celebrated as part of the National State Days project, launched in 2017 by National Day Calendar. Instead of celebrating on their admission anniversaries, the project celebrates the states in the order they joined the Union, beginning with National Delaware Day on July 13. In this cycle, National Ohio Day falls on November 2.