Cleveland

Cleveland was laid out on 22 July 1796 by surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company, who were dividing Connecticut's Western Reserve into townships; they named the settlement Cleaveland after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland, who planned a New England–style town around Public Square. The settlement served as a supply post during the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812 and grew quickly after the Ohio and Erie Canal, completed in 1832, linked the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. Ohio City, across the Cuyahoga, was a rival until its annexation in 1854.

The Civil War built up its factories, and the city became a great industrial centre of steel, oil and manufacturing: John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil here before moving its headquarters to New York in 1885. Immigrants arrived from Ireland, Italy and the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires — at one time the city had the highest concentration of Hungarians outside Budapest — followed by African Americans of the Great Migration. Wealthy patrons founded the art museum in 1916 and the orchestra in 1918, and Terminal Tower rose in 1927.

From the 1960s manufacturing declined and people left for the suburbs. The Hough riots of 1966, the burning of the Cuyahoga River in June 1969 — which helped launch the American environmental movement — and the city's default on loans in December 1978 came to symbolise its troubles. It emerged from default in 1987; the ballpark, the arena and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame followed in the 1990s, and the city is now known as much for medicine and universities as for steel.

Cleveland has been called the Rock and Roll Capital of the World. The disc jockey Alan Freed popularised the term 'rock and roll' on the radio here, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame chose the city as its home in 1986. Classical music matters as much: the Cleveland Orchestra, at Severance Hall in winter and Blossom Music Center in summer, is widely considered one of the finest in the world. Playhouse Square is the largest performing arts centre outside New York, Karamu House, founded in 1915, is the oldest African American theatre in the country, and the Tri-C Jazz Fest has run since 1980.

The city's identity is built on its ethnic neighbourhoods. The Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park honour dozens of communities, and One World Day has celebrated them since 1946. Little Italy holds the Feast of the Assumption each August, Tremont a Greek festival, Asiatown an Asian festival and Clark–Fulton a Puerto Rican parade, while the churches of Slavic and other Eastern European communities survive in neighbourhoods such as Tremont.

Sport inspires fierce loyalty. The Guardians, known as the Indians until 2021, won the World Series in 1920 and 1948; the Browns won eight titles between 1946 and 1964 but have never reached a Super Bowl; and the Cavaliers fill the arena downtown. Downtown's streets often stand in for other cities on film, doubling for Manhattan in The Avengers and for Metropolis in Superman.

Cleveland had about 373,000 residents at the 2020 census, the second-largest city in Ohio, and Greater Cleveland has an estimated 2.17 million. Healthcare is the biggest employer: the Cleveland Clinic, the largest private employer in Ohio with more than 60,000 staff in 2025, works alongside University Hospitals and MetroHealth. Higher education, finance, manufacturing and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland make up much of the rest.

The Cuyahoga Valley divides the city into the East Side and the West Side, a distinction people use every day. The city's Black population has been largely concentrated on the East Side since the Great Migration, while neighbourhoods such as Asiatown and Clark–Fulton have the largest shares of residents born abroad. Ohio City, Tremont, Detroit–Shoreway and Little Italy have attracted new residents and restaurants, and downtown's residential population has grown, while other districts still carry the losses of decades of decline.

Winter shapes the year, with lake-effect snow falling hardest on the East Side. In summer life moves outdoors, to the Lake Erie beaches, the Metroparks that ring the city, patios in the Flats and ball games downtown.

Central and Eastern European cooking is the base of Cleveland's food: kielbasa, stuffed cabbage, pierogi, goulash and chicken paprikash, brought by Slovak, Polish, Hungarian and other immigrants and still served in halls, taverns and family restaurants. The West Side Market in Ohio City, in its 1912 hall, sells sausages, breads, pastries and foods from many communities, and some of its stalls have been run by the same families for generations.

The city has its own street food, the Polish Boy: a kielbasa sausage in a bun, covered with chips, barbecue sauce and coleslaw, found at hot dog carts, barbecue joints and stadium stands. Slyman's Deli on the near East Side is known for its corned beef sandwich, and brown stadium mustard, above all Bertman Original Ballpark Mustard, is closely linked with the city.

Little Italy keeps its Italian bakeries and restaurants, Asiatown its Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese kitchens, and Tremont, Ohio City and the Flats have most of the newer restaurants. Ohio City has the city's densest cluster of breweries, led by Great Lakes Brewing, the first brewpub in Ohio when it opened in 1988 and a force behind the neighbourhood's revival.