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Columbus is the capital and largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio, center of the state's third largest metropolitan area behind Cincinnati and Cleveland, the fourth largest city in the American Midwest, and the sixteenth largest city in the United States of America. It is the county seat of Franklin County, yet the city has expanded and annexed portions of adjoining Delaware County and Fairfield County. Named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. The city has a diverse economy based on education, government, insurance, banking, fashion, defense, aviation, food, clothes, logistics, steel, energy, medical research, health care, hospitality, retail, and technology. Modern Columbus has emerged as a technologically sophisticated city.

Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland", is the 27th most populous metropolitan area in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million people spread across the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second largest county in the United States by population. The city is renowned for its fascinating museums - including the Art Institute and its expansive collections, including noted Impressionist works; it is a city with an appetite for food, of course, but also for design, history, culture, finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications and transportation.

San Diego, named after Saint Didacus, is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California after Los Angeles, with a population of 1,306,300 (Jul 2009) within its administrative limits on a land area of 372.1 square miles (963.7 km2). The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. The urban area of San Diego extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 2,880,000. San Diego is also the county seat of San Diego County, the 5th largest county, by population, in the United States.   

Los Angeles, Spanish for "The Angels", is the most populous city in California and the second most populous in the United States, with a population of 4.06 million on a land area of 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km2). It is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach Riverside  combined statistical area, which contains nearly 17.8 million people. This makes it the 12th most populous metropolitan area in the world. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most multicultural counties in the United States. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos".

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the fifteenth most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006. Austin has a population of 786,386 (2009 U.S. Census estimate). The city is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos metropolitan area, with a population of over 1.7 million, making it the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the United States.