The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony by King Charles II. Connecticut relinquished claim to some of its western lands in 1786 following the American Revolutionary War and preceding the 1787 establishment of the Northwest Territory. However, the state retained a portion south of Lake Erie and sold much of this remaining Western Reserve to developers. Connecticut ceded its final claims on the territory to the United States in 1800. "Western Reserve" is referred to in numerous institutional names in Ohio, such as Western Reserve Academy and Case Western Reserve University.
The Reserve encompassed all of the following Ohio counties: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Erie and Huron (see Firelands), Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, Trumbull; and portions of Ashland, Mahoning, Ottawa, Summit, and Wayne.