Where to Stay in Columbus, Ohio

What is Columbus known for?

Columbus is known first as the seat of Ohio and the home of Ohio State University, whose campus shapes daily life across the city. The Columbus Museum of Art holds the leading collection at the core of the Greater Columbus area. Culture spreads outward from there.

Thurber House keeps the memory of its writer, while the Cultural Arts Center gives artists a working home. Ballgames draw crowds to Huntington Park through the warm months.

What are the main landmarks in Columbus?

Columbus keeps its landmarks between museum galleries and old church walls. The Columbus Museum of Art holds the city's leading collection, while the Cultural Arts Center gives working artists a downtown home. Faith marks the east side.

Saint Patrick Church, the Broad Street Christian Church, and the East Broad Street Presbyterian Church stand among the older sanctuaries there, joined by house museums like Thurber House and the Kelton House Museum and Garden. Memory holds its own ground. The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial and the William McKinley Monument anchor the civic core near the capitol of Ohio.

Columbus stacks its landmarks in layers.

What is the history of Columbus?

Columbus was founded in 1812 to serve as the new capital of Ohio, laid out on high ground near the centre of the young state. Its planners chose the site for its river crossings and its reach across the surrounding farm country. The capitol made the town.

Government and learning grew together as the settlement matured. The seat of Ohio drew clerks, lawyers, and lawmakers, while the founding of Ohio State University later turned the city into a centre of study and research at the heart of the Greater Columbus area. Trade followed the roads and rails.

Nineteenth-century prosperity left a run of grand houses and sanctuaries, among them Thurber House, the Kelton House Museum and Garden, and Saint Patrick Church, which still line the older east side. Civic pride raised its own markers, and the William McKinley Monument rose near the capitol to honour a fallen president tied to the state. Over the years the city spread outward from its downtown grid toward the ring of suburbs around it.

That founding purpose as the capital of Ohio, more than any single industry, shaped how Columbus came to be.

Where is Columbus?

Columbus sits near the centre of Ohio, spread across low ground where several rivers meet on the surrounding farm plain. Its streets run outward from a downtown grid to the ring of suburbs that make up the Greater Columbus area. The land lies broad and gentle here.

That flat, well-watered setting, open to the farm country on every side, gives the capital its easy sprawl. Ohio State University marks the near north side.

What is the climate of Columbus?

Columbus has a humid continental climate with four clear seasons on the plains of Ohio. Summers turn warm and often muggy, while winters bring cold spells, snow, and grey skies to the centre of the state. Spring arrives green and wet.

Storms cross in the warmer months. Rain and snow spread fairly evenly through the year across the Greater Columbus area, and the open farm country around the city offers little shelter from the winds that sweep the flat interior. Autumn is the mildest stretch.

How do you get to Columbus?

Columbus sits at the meeting of several interstate highways near the centre of Ohio, served by its own airport on the east side. Most visitors arrive by road or air. From downtown it is a short drive out to Ohio State University and the wider Greater Columbus area.

The flat grid makes the city simple to cross by car. Rail and bus lines add further links.