Lima, Ohio

Lima is a town in the American state of Ohio. It is in Allen County, Ohio. The musical comedy, Glee, is set in a fictionalized version of Lima. The TV series' sets and filming locations bear little similarity to the real town of Lima. However, Glee is actually filmed in Los Angeles.

The following sections describe the fictional version of Lima.

Economy
In Dream On, Bryan Ryan says that most of the glee club members will likely end up staying within Allen County and working at "a mid-market health insurance provider" or at an elderly-care facility, implying that health care services make up a large part of the local economy.

Several local businesses have been seen on the show, including: Hummel Tires & Lube, Rinky Dinks, The Lima Bean, Mattress Land, Breadstix, and Sheets-N-Things.

Culture
Lima has an active community theater group, the Lima Theatre Guild.



Media
Television station WOHN-TV provides news coverage for western Ohio. Print media includes the Lima News.

Government and Politics
Lima is located in Ohio's 4th Congressional district. When the 4th district's current U.S. Representative dies unexpectedly sometime prior to Season Three and a special election is held to fill his seat, Sue Sylvester decides to run on an anti-arts platform (The Purple Piano Project). However, Burt Hummel enters the race as a write-in candidate and eventually wins the election, defeating both Sue and Reggie "The Sauce" Salazar (I Kissed a Girl).



Education
Lima has a high school, William McKinley High School. Among the members of the local school board is Bryan Ryan, a former McKinley Glee Club member.

It is also home to the Allen County Community College and the University of Lima.

Healthcare
There appear to be numerous health care professionals in Lima. Dentists include Carl Howell and Mercedes Jones' unnamed father. Santana Lopez's father is a doctor (specialty unknown). There are two obstetricians, Dr. Chin and Dr. Wu.

Lima is named America's fattest city as shown in a newspaper article seen during the Tongue Tied montage in Nationals.

Lima Heights Adjacent
Santana's family lives here, as she mentions in Silly Love Songs. She claims it is on the wrong side of the tracks. She mentioned in Mash Off that she was born and raised with insults, implying that it isn't a nice neighborhood. However, she contradicts herself sometimes because in Britney/Brittany, she mentions that her dad is a doctor. It would be unlikely for a doctor and his family to live in a rough neighborhood.

West Lima
In The First Time, Kurt and Blaine visit a gay bar, Scandals, located in West Lima.

West Lima Crack District
In Dream On, Bryan Ryan says he ended up here after briefly working at Kings Island and as a cruise ship performer.

Trivia

 * While the writers have clearly done some research on Ohio locales (such as Rachel mentioning EJ Thomas Hall in Akron), there are smaller details they get wrong that an Ohio native can point out:
 * Outside the larger cities and their suburbs, the smaller cities like Lima don't have particularly large Asian or Jewish populations.
 * Lima does, however, have a significant Black population, at least more so than we've seen on the show.
 * Ohio's age of consent law is 16. It technically wasn't illegal for Jeremiah, Blaine's previous crush, to date him and be intimate.
 * The students at McKinley are often seen lounging outside before class during times of the year when it would be way too cold to do so (from late October to mid-April).
 * There is no Lima zoo. This was pointed out by Unique Adams in A Katy or A Gaga.