Northwest

Northwest Ohio covers the broad agricultural country in the northwestern corner of the state, the flat farmland that was once the Great Black Swamp — drained over decades to become some of the most productive farmland in the Midwest. The terrain is famously level, broken only by the Maumee, Auglaize, and St. Marys rivers cutting through. Grand Lake St. Marys (the largest lake in Ohio at the time of its construction in 1845) sits in the southern counties. Fourteen counties cover the region. Allen holds Lima (the largest city); Hancock holds Findlay (the historic oil-and-gas boomtown); Auglaize holds Wapakoneta (Neil Armstrong’s hometown, with the Armstrong Air & Space Museum) and St. Marys; Logan holds Bellefontaine and Indian Lake; Defiance holds Defiance; Mercer holds Celina and Grand Lake St. Marys; Shelby holds Sidney. Grand Lake St. Marys, Indian Lake State Park, and the Auglaize and Maumee river corridors handle the major water recreation. Most trips here run agricultural-and-historical. The Armstrong Air & Space Museum draws the largest single-stream visitor traffic; Findlay’s downtown and Hancock Historical Museum carry oil-history visits; Indian Lake handles summer cottage traffic; Sidney and Bellefontaine fill small-town stops along the Lincoln Highway.