Cincinnati ( SIN-si-NAT-ee; nicknamed Cincy) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. Settled by Europeans in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line with Kentucky. The population of Cincinnati was 309,317 in 2020, making it the third-most populous city in Ohio after Columbus and Cleveland and 64th in the United States. The city is the economic and cultural hub of the Cincinnati metropolitan area, Ohio's most populous metro area, and the nation's 30th-largest, with over 2.265 million residents. Throughout much of the 19th century, Cincinnati was among the top 10 U.S. cities by population. The city developed as a river town for cargo shipping by steamboats, located at the crossroads of the Northern and Southern United States, with fewer immigrants and less influence from Europe than East Coast cities in the same period. However, it received a significant number of German-speaking immigrants, who founded many of the city's cultural institutions. It later developed an industrialized economy in manufacturing. Many structures in the urban core have remained intact for 200 years; in the late 1800s, Cincinnati was commonly referred to as the "Paris of America" due mainly to ambitious architectural projects such as the Music Hall, Cincinnatian Hotel, and Roebling Bridge. Cincinnati has the twenty-eighth largest economy in the United States and the fifth largest in the Midwest, home to several Fortune 500 companies including Kroger, Procter & Gamble, and Fifth Third Bank. It is home to three professional sports teams: the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball; the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League; and FC Cincinnati of Major League Soccer; it is also home to the Cincinnati Cyclones, a minor league ice hockey team. The city's largest institution of higher education, the University of Cincinnati, was founded in 1819 as a municipal college and is now ranked as one of the 50 largest in the United States. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is based in the city.