The Eastern Corn Belt Plains ecoregion is primarily a rolling till plain with local end moraines. At one time, it had more natural tree cover and has lighter colored soils than the Central Low Plains (5E) to the west. The region has loamier and better drained soils than the Lake Erie Plain (57), and richer soils than the Erie Drift Plains (5N).

Deposits of Wisconsinan glaciation age are extensive, but are not as dissected nor as leached as the pre-Wisconsinan glaciation till which is restricted to the southern part of the region.

Originally, beech forests were common on Wisconsinan soils while beech forests and elm-ash swamp forests populated the wetter pre-Wisconsinan soils. Today, extensive corn, soybean, and livestock production occurs and has affected stream chemistry and turbidity.

This area was occupied by the Erie until losing the war with the Iroquois. Many other Native American tribes relocated in Ohio Territory due to the large influx of European colonies that increasingly spread across their lands.