Why The U.N. Headquarters Should Be In Ohio

By Isaac Cabe on March 8, 2013

Somehow, the Ohio state flag looks less ridiculously shaped like this.

So real quick, name a major city in Ohio that doesn’t have a professional sports team. If you said Cleveland, then go away. Now. Nobody likes you. Did you say Toledo? Pretty cool how that’s named after a city in Spain, right? Ohio isn’t terribly original, because there’s also a Seville. Or maybe you said Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall Of Fame. Given the flop that is American Football abroad, try to imagine the Canton Province of China being the host to the annual enshrinement ceremonies, or the Ohio high school football state championships having to be held thousands of miles away from America.

Ok, so a couple semi-major cities borrowed their names. Big deal. It isn’t like a bunch of places in Ohio did the same thing, right? Well, turns out they do that all the time. So while Ohio borrowed Toronto and Ontario from their neighbor to the north, the identity theft is much more broad overseas, so we’ll start with Europe.

If you’re feeling a little homesick for mother England, you’ll feel right at home in Ohio. They’ve got London near the middle of the state, Liverpool about fifty miles from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and you can get your shamrock on in Dublin, where the Irish theme isn’t lost on the high school mascots. If you’re looking to get your grand ol’ British education in gear, they’ve got Kent, the home of Kent State University, Oxford, where Miami (OH) is considered one of the “public Ivy” schools in America, and Cambridge, with no real university in sight.

Greece also has some major grips on Ohio territory. With places like Troy, Ithaca and Sparta, Ohio, the Greeks would be all set here in the Buckeye State. Of course, it wouldn’t make any sense to have Sparta without an Athens, so grab a toga and head over to Athens’ own Ohio University, a regular on Top Party School lists. Italy would almost feel left out because of all this, so there’s a Rome, a Milan, and a Venice, which is unfortunately landlocked. And because snooty countries have to follow each other, France is represented by both Paris and Versailles.

Let’s move on down to the Middle East for a second, which has become a major world player over the last decade or so. It only makes sense that Ohio would have a Medina and Mecca. And that they’d also have a Damascus, a Cairo, and a Canaan, just for old time’s sake. There’s even a Jerusalem and a Bethlehem, so Jesus himself would be happy to call Ohio home.

But the Middle East’s strongholds in Ohio are probably the places named for entire countries, with Lebanon and Macedonia both having places named for them sitting in Ohio. Surprisingly, nobody’s noticed how Palestine is frighteningly just one small county away from Israel.

The rest of the world needn’t be too afraid though, as those aren’t the only countries in Ohio. There’s also a Peru, a Holland (who also has an Amsterdam to go with it), and a Denmark. Thankfully, there’s a Switzerland to keep the peace in case anything happens between Russia and Poland. It also only makes sense that each of these countries have a major city from the old country to represent them over in Ohio. How do Geneva, Moscow, and Warsaw sound?

By this point, you’re probably thinking Ohio is a pretty un-American place. Don’t worry, they’ve still got their fellow states in mind, because it turns out that there’s also a Texas, a Delaware, and a Wyoming. Now that casinos are legal in Ohio, it’s probably only a matter of time before Nevada, Ohio gets a nice population boost. And we can only imagine the amount of confused retirees in Florida, Ohio.

Folks, this is only just scratching the surface. In conclusion, I believe that due to Ohio’s continuous commitment to both worldly diversity and the rest of the United States, the UN Headquarters should be moved to American Township, Ohio, USA.