Warren County Ohio: Encyclopedia II - Warren County Ohio - Geography

Warren County Ohio - Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,054 km² (407 mi²). 1,035 km² (400 mi²) of it is land and 19 km² (8 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 1.84% water. The county is a rough square with the sides roughly 20 miles (30 km) long.

Warren County Ohio - Adjacent counties

Beginning in the northwest corner and proceeding clockwise, the following counties border Warren County: Montgomery, Greene, Clinton, Clermont, Hamilton, and Butler.

Warren County Ohio - Boundaries

Warren County was created by the first Ohio General Assembly in the Act of March 24, 1803, which also created Butler and Montgomery Counties. The act defined Warren County as "all that part of the county of Hamilton included within the following bounds, viz.: Beginning at the northeast corner of the county of Clermont, running thence west with the line of said county to the Little Miami; thence up the same with the meanders thereof to the north boundary of the first tier of sections in the second entire range of townships in the Miami Purchase; thence west to the northeast corner of Section No. 7 in the third township of the aforesaid range; thence north to the Great Miami; thence up the same to the middle of the fifth range of townships; thence east to the County line; thence with same south to the place of beginning." Originally this included land now in Clinton County as far east as Wilmington.

Clinton County proved a continuing headache to the legislature. The Ohio Constitution requires that every county have an area of at least four hundred square miles (1,036 km²). Clinton County's boundaries were several times adjusted in an effort to comply with that clause of the constitution. One of them, the Act of January 30, 1815, detached a strip of land from the eastern side to give to Clinton. That would have left Warren under four hundred square miles (1,036 km²), so a portion of Butler County (the part of Franklin Township where Carlisle is now located) was attached to Warren in compensation. The 1815 act was as follows:

• Section 1--That all that part of the county of Butler lying and being within the first and second fractional townships in the fifth range, and adjoining the south line of Montgomery County, shall be and the same is hereby attached to and made part of the county of Warren.
• Section 2--That eleven square miles [28 km²] of the territory of the county of Warren and extending parallel to the said eastern boundary of Warren County, along the whole lenth of such eastern boundary from north to south, shall be and the same is hereby attached to and made a part of the county of Clinton."

Except for the sections formed by the Great and Little Miamis, the sides are all straight lines.

Warren County Ohio - Lakes and rivers

The major rivers of the county are the Great Miami River, which flows through the northwest corner of the county in Franklin Township, and the Little Miami River which zig-zags across the county from north to south. There is one sizeable lake, the Caesars Creek Reservoir, created by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam on Caesars Creek in the northeast part of the county in Massie Township.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Geography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki