Zanesville, Ohio in the context of "United States Census 2020"

Municipal annexation is the legal process by which a city or other municipality acquires land as its jurisdictional territory (as opposed to simply owning the land the way individuals do). The annexed land is typically not part of any other municipality. In the United States and Canada, however, annexation may also involve one polity absorbing another, usually an adjacent and smaller one, and usually by vote of the residents of both polities. For example, in 1872, the city Zanesville, Ohio annexed the adjacent community of Putnam, and in 1889, the city of Toronto annexed the adjacent town of Parkdale.

Putnam Historic District, located in Zanesville, Ohio, was an important center of Underground Railroad traffic and home to a number of abolitionists. The district, with private residences and other key buildings important in the fight against slavery, lies between the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, Van Buren Street, and Muskingum River. It became a historic district of the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782 – June 17, 1866) was a United States Army officer and politician. He represented Michigan in the United States Senate and served in the Cabinets of two U.S. Presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. He was also the 1848 Democratic presidential nominee. A slave owner himself, he was a leading spokesman for the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which at the time held the idea that people in each U.S state should have the right to decide whether to permit slavery as a matter of states' rights.

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy before establishing a legal practice in Zanesville, Ohio. After serving in the Ohio House of Representatives, he was appointed as a U.S. Marshal. Cass also joined the Freemasons and eventually co-founded the Grand Lodge of Michigan. He fought at the Battle of the Thames in the War of 1812 and was appointed to govern Michigan Territory in 1813. He negotiated treaties with American tribes to open land for American settlement as part of a belief in "manifest destiny" and led a survey expedition into the northwest part of the territory.

Lancaster (locally /ˈlæŋk(ə)stər/ LANK-(ə-)stər) is a city in Fairfield County, Ohio, and its county seat. The population was 40,552 at the 2020 United States census, making it Ohio's 30th largest city, having surpassed Warren and Findlay due to its own growth while the latter two cities declined. The city is near the Hocking River in the south-central part of the state, about 33 miles (53 km) southeast of Columbus and 38 miles (61 km) southwest of Zanesville. It is part of the Columbus metropolitan area.

Muskingum County (/məˈskɪŋ(ɡ)əm/ mə-SKING-(g)əm) is a county located in the east-central portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 86,410. Its county seat is Zanesville. Nearly bisected by the Muskingum River, the county name is based on a Delaware American Indian word translated as "town by the river" or "elk's eye". Muskingum County comprises the Zanesville, OH Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Columbus-Marion-Zanesville, OH Combined Statistical Area. The Zanesville Micropolitan Statistical Area is the second-largest statistical area within the Combined Statistical Area, after the Columbus Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county also comprises the entire Zanesville media market.

The Columbus metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in Central Ohio surrounding the state capital of Columbus. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, it includes the counties of Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Hocking, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Perry, Pickaway and Union. At the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 2,138,926, making it 32nd-most populous in the United States and the second largest in Ohio, behind the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The metro area, also known as Central Ohio or Greater Columbus, is one of the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the Midwestern United States.

The larger combined statistical area (the Columbus–Marion–Zanesville combined statistical area) adds the counties of Athens, Fayette, Guernsey, Knox, Logan, Marion, Muskingum, and Ross. It includes the Micropolitan Statistical Areas of Athens, Bellefontaine, Cambridge, Chillicothe, Marion, Mount Vernon, Washington Court House, and Zanesville, due to strong ties with Columbus. The population of the CSA was 2,544,048 at the 2020 census, 26th largest in the nation and ranking second in Ohio behind the Cleveland-Akron-Canton combined statistical area.