<P> The Ohio Country (sometimes called the Ohio Territory or Ohio Valley by the French) was a name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie . This area was disputed in the mid-18th century by France and Great Britain . </P> <P> One of the first frontier regions of the United States, the area encompassed roughly all of present - day Ohio, northwestern West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and eastern Indiana . Historians believe that the issue of Anglo - American settlement in the region was a primary cause of the French and Indian War and a contributing factor to the American Revolutionary War . </P>

The ohio valley was situated between lands claimed by what two european nations