Dayton, Ohio

Dayton ( ) is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the time of 2020 United States census. The Dayton metropolitan area has an estimated 822,000 residents and is the state's fourth-largest metropolitan area. Dayton is located within Ohio's Miami Valley region, 40 miles (64 km) north of Cincinnati and 55 miles (89 km) southwest of Columbus, Ohio. Dayton was founded in 1796 along the Great Miami River and named after Jonathan Dayton, a Founding Father of the United States who owned a significant amount of land in the area. It grew in the 19th century as a canal town and was home to many patents and inventors, most notably the Wright brothers, who developed the first successful motor-operated airplane. It later developed an industrialized economy and was home to the Dayton Project, a branch of the larger Manhattan Project, to develop the polonium triggers used in early atomic bombs. With the decline of heavy manufacturing in the late 20th century, Dayton is no longer a manufacturing economy, and is now a service economy. Ohio's borders are within 500 miles (800 km) of roughly 60 percent of the country's population and manufacturing infrastructure, making Dayton a logistics hub. The city is located near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a significant contributor to research and development in the industrial, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering fields. Along with defense and aerospace, healthcare accounts for much of the Dayton area's economy. Significant institutions in Dayton include the Air Force Institute of Technology, Carillon Historical Park, the Dayton Art Institute, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, Wright State University, and the University of Dayton.