Indiana () is a
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
in the
Midwestern
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. It is the
38th-largest by area and the
17th-most populous of the
50 States
The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district ( Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. Both the states and the United ...
. Its capital and largest city is
Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th state on December 11, 1816. It is bordered by
Lake Michigan to the northwest,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
to the north,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
to the east, the
Ohio River and
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
to the south and southeast, and the
Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
and
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
to the west.
Various
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
inhabited what would become Indiana for thousands of years, some of whom the U.S. government expelled between 1800 and 1836. Indiana received its name because the state was largely possessed by native tribes even after it was granted statehood. Since then, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...
; the state's northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
and
New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the
Mid-Atlantic states and adjacent Ohio, and
Southern Indiana
Southern Indiana is a region consisting of the southern third of the state of Indiana.
The region's history and geography has led to a blend of Northern and Southern culture distinct from the remainder of Indiana. It is often considered to be par ...
by settlers from the
Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
, particularly Kentucky and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
.
Indiana has
a diverse economy with a gross state product of $352.62billion in 2021. It has several
metropolitan areas with populations greater than 100,000 and a number of smaller cities and towns. Indiana is home to professional sports teams, including the
NFL's
Indianapolis Colts and the
NBA's
Indiana Pacers. The state also hosts several notable competitive events, such as the
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...
, held at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Etymology
![Welcome to Indiana, Crossroads of America](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Welcome_to_Indiana%2C_Crossroads_of_America.jpg)
Indiana's name means "Land of the
Indians", or simply "Indian Land". It also stems from Indiana's territorial history. On May 7, 1800, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed legislation to divide the
Northwest Territory into two areas and named the western section the
Indiana Territory
The Indiana Territory, officially the Territory of Indiana, was created by a congressional act that President John Adams signed into law on May 7, 1800, to form an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, ...
. In 1816, when Congress passed an Enabling Act to begin the process of establishing statehood for Indiana, a part of this territorial land became the geographic area for the new state.
Formal use of the word ''Indiana'' dates from 1768, when a
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
-based trading company gave its land claim in present-day
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
the name "Indiana" in honor of its previous owners, the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
. Later, ownership of the claim was transferred to the
Indiana Land Company
Vandalia was the name in the late 1700s of a proposed British colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what are now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky.
Vandalia was never approved b ...
, the first recorded use of the word ''Indiana''. But the
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
colony argued that it was the rightful owner of the land because it fell within its geographic boundaries. The
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
denied the land company's right to the claim in 1798.
[Cyrus Hodgin, "The Naming of Indiana" in ]
A native or resident of Indiana is known as a
Hoosier
Hoosier is the official demonym for the people of the U.S. state of Indiana. The origin of the term remains a matter of debate, but "Hoosier" was in general use by the 1840s, having been popularized by Richmond resident John Finley's 1833 poem " ...
. The etymology of this word is disputed, but the leading theory, advanced by the Indiana Historical Bureau and the Indiana Historical Society, has its origin in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee (the
Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
) as a term for a backwoodsman, a rough countryman, or a country bumpkin.
History
Indigenous inhabitants
![Angel mound with turret HRoe 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Angel_mound_with_turret_HRoe_2008.jpg)
The first inhabitants in what is now Indiana were the
Paleo-Indians, who arrived about 8000 BC after the melting of the glaciers at the end of the
Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
. Divided into small groups, the Paleo-Indians were
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
s who hunted large
game such as
mastodons
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...
. They created stone tools made out of
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...
by chipping,
knapping
Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing w ...
and
flaking.
The
Archaic period, which began between 5000 and 4000 BC, covered the next phase of indigenous culture. The people developed new tools as well as techniques to cook food, an important step in civilization. These new tools included different types of spear points and knives, with various forms of
notches. They made ground-stone tools such as stone axes, woodworking tools and grinding stones. During the latter part of the period, they built earthwork
mound
A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher ...
s and
middens, which showed settlements were becoming more permanent. The Archaic period ended at about 1500 BC, although some Archaic people lived until 700 BC.
The
Woodland period began around 1500 BC when new cultural attributes appeared. The people created ceramics and pottery and extended their cultivation of plants. An early Woodland period group named the
Adena people had elegant burial rituals, featuring log tombs beneath earth mounds. In the middle of the Woodland period, the
Hopewell people began to develop long-range trade of
goods
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants
and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not t ...
. Nearing the end of the stage, the people developed highly productive cultivation and adaptation of agriculture, growing such crops as
corn and
squash
Squash may refer to:
Sports
* Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets
* Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling
* Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...
. The Woodland period ended around 1000 AD.
The
Mississippian culture emerged, lasting from 1000 AD until the 15th century, shortly before the arrival of Europeans. During this stage, the people created large urban settlements designed according to their
cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
, with large mounds and plazas defining ceremonial and public spaces. The concentrated settlements depended on the agricultural surpluses. One such complex was the
Angel Mounds
Angel Mounds State Historic Site ( 12 VG 1), an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than of land about southeast of present-day Evansville ...
. They had large public areas such as plazas and platform mounds, where leaders lived or conducted rituals. Mississippian civilization collapsed in Indiana during the mid-15th century for reasons that remain unclear.
The historic Native American tribes in the area at the time of European encounter spoke different languages of the
Algonquian family. They included the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
,
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
, and
Illini. Refugee tribes from eastern regions, including the
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
who settled in the White and Whitewater River Valleys, later joined them.
European exploration and sovereignty
![Natives guiding french explorers through indiana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Natives_guiding_french_explorers_through_indiana.jpg)
In 1679, French explorer
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was the first European to cross into Indiana after reaching present-day
South Bend
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
at the
St. Joseph River. He returned the following year to learn about the region. French-Canadian
fur traders soon arrived, bringing blankets, jewelry, tools, whiskey and weapons to trade for skins with the Native Americans.
By 1702,
Sieur Juchereau established the first trading post near
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...
. In 1715,
Sieur de Vincennes built
Fort Miami at
Kekionga
Kekionga (meaning "blackberry bush"), also known as KiskakonCharles R. Poinsatte, ''Fort Wayne During the Canal Era 1828-1855,'' Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1969, p. 1 or Pacan's Village, was the capital of the Miami tribe. It was ...
, now
Fort Wayne. In 1717, another Canadian,
Picote de Beletre Picote may refer to:
* Picote (Miranda do Douro), Portugal, a civil parish
* Picote Dam, Miranda do Douro
* Nebbiolo, an Italian wine grape variety also known as Picote
See also
* François-Marie Picoté de Belestre
François-Marie Picoté, sieu ...
, built
Fort Ouiatenon
Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles ...
on the
Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
, to try to control Native American trade routes from
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
to the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
.
In 1732, Sieur de Vincennes built a second fur trading post at Vincennes. French Canadian settlers, who had left the earlier post because of hostilities, returned in larger numbers. In a period of a few years, British colonists arrived from the East and contended against the Canadians for control of the lucrative fur trade. Fighting between the French and British colonists occurred throughout the 1750s as a result.
The Native American tribes of Indiana sided with the French Canadians during the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
(also known as the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...
). With British victory in 1763, the French were forced to cede to the British crown all their lands in North America east of the Mississippi River and north and west of the
colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
.
The tribes in Indiana did not give up: they captured
Fort Ouiatenon
Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles ...
and
Fort Miami during
Pontiac's Rebellion
Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–176 ...
. The British royal proclamation of 1763 designated the land west of the
Appalachians
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
for Native American use, and excluded British colonists from the area, which the Crown called "Indian Territory".
In 1775, the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
began as the colonists sought self-government and independence from the British. The majority of the fighting took place near the East Coast, but the Patriot military officer
George Rogers Clark called for an army to help fight the British in the west. Clark's army won significant battles and took over
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...
and
Fort Sackville
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were change ...
on February 25, 1779.
During the war, Clark managed to cut off British troops, who were attacking the eastern colonists from the west. His success is often credited for changing the course of the American Revolutionary War. At the end of the war, through the
Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France:
Treaties
1200s and 1300s
* Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade
* Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France
* Trea ...
, the British crown ceded their claims to the land south of the Great Lakes to the newly formed United States, including Native American lands.
The frontier
In 1787, the U.S. defined the
Northwest Territory which included the area of present-day Indiana. In 1800, Congress separated
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
from the Northwest Territory, designating the rest of the land as the
Indiana Territory
The Indiana Territory, officially the Territory of Indiana, was created by a congressional act that President John Adams signed into law on May 7, 1800, to form an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, ...
.
President
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
chose
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...
as the governor of the territory, and
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...
was established as the capital. After the
Michigan Territory was separated and the
Illinois Territory
The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. Its ...
was formed, Indiana was reduced to its current size and geography.
Starting with the
Battle of Fallen Timbers
The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between Native American tribes affiliated with the Northwestern Confederacy and their British allies, against the nascent United State ...
in 1794 and the
Treaty of Greenville
The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples ...
in 1795, Native American titles to Indiana lands were extinguished by usurpation, purchase, or war and treaty. About half the state was acquired in the
Treaty of St. Mary's
The Treaty of St. Mary's may refer to one of six treaties concluded in fall of 1818 between the United States and Natives of central Indiana regarding purchase of Native land. The treaties were
*Treaty with the Wyandot, etc.
*Treaty with the Wy ...
from the Miami in 1818. Purchases were not complete until the
Treaty of Mississinewas
The Treaty of Mississinewas or the Treaty of Mississinewa also called Treaty of the Wabash is an 1826 treaty between the United States and the Miami and Potawatomi Tribes regarding purchase of Indian lands in Indiana and Michigan. The signing was ...
in 1826 acquired the last of the reserved Native American lands in the northeast.
A portrait of the Indiana frontier about 1810: The frontier was defined by the
Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1809, adding much of the southwestern lands around Vincennes and southeastern lands adjacent to Cincinnati, to areas along the Ohio River as part of U.S. territory. Settlements were military outposts such as Fort Ouiatenon in the northwest and Fort Miami (later Fort Wayne) in the northeast, Fort Knox and Vincennes settlement on the lower Wabash. Other settlements included Clarksville (across from Louisville), Vevay, and Corydon along the Ohio River, the Quaker Colony in Richmond on the eastern border, and Conner's Post (later Connersville) on the east central frontier. Indianapolis would not be populated for 15 more years, and central and northern Indiana Territory remained wilderness populated primarily by Indigenous communities. Only two counties in the extreme southeast, Clark and Dearborn, had been organized by European settlers. Land titles issued out of Cincinnati were sparse. Settler migration was chiefly via flatboat on the Ohio River westerly, and by wagon trails up the Wabash/White River Valleys (west) and Whitewater River Valleys (east).
In 1810, the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
tribal chief
Tecumseh and his brother
Tenskwatawa
Tenskwatawa (also called Tenskatawa, Tenskwatawah, Tensquatawa or Lalawethika) (January 1775 – November 1836) was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee tribe, known as the Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was a ...
encouraged other indigenous tribes in the territory to resist European settlement. Tensions rose and the U.S. authorized Harrison to launch a preemptive expedition against Tecumseh's Confederacy; the U.S. gained victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. Tecumseh was killed in 1813 during the Battle of Thames. After his death, armed resistance to United States control ended in the region. Most Native American tribes in the state were later Indian removals in Indiana, removed to west of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
in the 1820s and 1830s after U.S. negotiations and the purchase of their lands.
Statehood and settlement
Corydon, Indiana, Corydon, a town in the far southern part of Indiana, was named the second capital of the Indiana Territory in May 1813 in order to decrease the threat of Native American raids following the Battle of Tippecanoe.
Two years later, a petition for statehood was approved by the territorial general assembly and sent to Congress. An Enabling Act was passed to provide an election of delegates to write a constitution of Indiana, constitution for Indiana. On June 10, 1816, delegates assembled at Corydon to write the constitution, which was completed in 19 days. Jonathan Jennings was elected the fledgling state's first governor in August 1816. President James Madison approved Indiana's Admission to the Union, admission into the union as the List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union, nineteenth state on December 11, 1816.
In 1825, the state capital was moved from Corydon to
Indianapolis.
Many European immigrants went west to settle in Indiana in the early 19th century. The largest immigrant group to settle in Indiana were German-American, Germans, as well as many immigrants from Ireland and England. Americans who were primarily English American, ethnically English migrated from the Northern Tier of New York and New England, as well as from the mid-Atlantic state of Pennsylvania.
The arrival of steamboats on the Ohio River in 1811, and the National Road at Richmond in 1829, greatly facilitated settlement of northern and western Indiana.
Following statehood, the new government worked to transform Indiana from a American frontier, frontier into a developed, well-populated, and thriving state, beginning significant demographic and economic changes. In 1836, the state's founders initiated a program, the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act, that led to the construction of roads, canals, railroads and state-funded public schools. The plans bankrupted the state and were a financial disaster, but increased land and produce value more than fourfold. In response to the crisis and in order to avert another, in 1851, a second constitution was adopted. Among its provisions were a prohibition on public debt, as well as the extension of suffrage to African-Americans.
Civil War and late 19th century industry
During the American Civil War, Indiana became politically influential and played an important role in the affairs of the nation. Indiana was the first western state to mobilize for the United States in the war, and soldiers from Indiana participated in all the war's major engagements. The state provided 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery and 13 regiments of cavalry to the Union (American Civil War), Union.
In 1861, Indiana was assigned a American Civil War#Mobilization, quota of 7,500 men to join the Union Army. So many volunteered in the first call that thousands had to be turned away. Before the war ended, Indiana had contributed 208,367 men. Casualties were over 35% among these men: 24,416 lost their lives and over 50,000 more were wounded. The only Civil War conflicts fought in Indiana were the Newburgh Raid, a bloodless capture of the city; and the Battle of Corydon, which occurred during Morgan's Raid leaving 15 dead, 40 wounded, and 355 captured.
After the war, Indiana remained a largely agricultural state. Post-war industries included mining, including limestone extraction; meatpacking; food processing, such as milling grain, distilling it into alcohol; and the building of wagons, buggies, farm machinery, and hardware.
However, the Indiana gas boom, discovery of natural gas in the 1880s in northern Indiana led to an economic boom: the abundant and cheap fuel attracted heavy industry; the availability of jobs, in turn, attracted new settlers from other parts of the country as well as from Europe.
[Gray 1995, p. 202.] This led to the rapid expansion of cities such as South Bend, Indianapolis, and
Fort Wayne.
Early 20th century
The early decades of the 20th century saw Indiana develop into a leading Rust Belt, manufacturing state with heavy industry concentrating in the north.
In 1906 the United States Steel Corporation created a new industrial city on Lake Michigan, Gary, Indiana, Gary, named after Elbert Henry Gary, its founding chairman. With industrialization, workers developed labor unions (their strike activities induced governor James P. Goodrich to declare martial law in Gary in 1919) and a Socialist Party of America, socialist party. Railroader Eugene V. Debs, Eugene Debs of Terre Haute, Indiana, Terre Haute, the Socialist candidate received 901,551 votes (6.0% of the national vote) in the 1912 presidential election.
[1912 Presidential General Election Results](_blank)
, ''U.S. Election Atlas'', David Leip. Retrieved January 5, 2019. Suffrage movements also arose to enfranchise women.
In its earlier years, Indiana was a leader in the automobile boom. Beginning its production in Kokomo, Indiana, Kokomo in 1896, Haynes-Apperson was the nation's first commercially successful auto company. The importance of vehicle and parts manufacture to the state was symbolized by the construction in 1909 of the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In the 1920s, state politics was heavily influenced by the rise of the Indiana Klan. First organized in 1915 as a branch of the Ku Klux Klan, it appealed to white Protestants alarmed by social and economic trends, including changes induced by immigration from southern and central Europe. In the name of defending "hundred-per-cent Americanism", the Klan sought exclude from public life "Communism, Bolsheviks, Catholic Church, Catholics, Jews, Negroes, Rum-running, bootleggers, Pacifism, pacifists, Evolutionism, evolutionists, foreigners, and all persons it considered immoral".
By 1925 the Klan had 250,000 members, an estimated 30% of native-born white men. By 1925 over half the elected members of the Indiana General Assembly, the governor of Indiana, and many other high-ranking officials in local and state government were members of the Klan. Politicians had also learned they needed Klan endorsement to win office. That year, "Grand Dragon" D.C. Stephenson, who had begun to brag "I am the law in Indiana", was charged and convicted for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a young schoolteacher. Denied pardon, in 1927 Stephenson gave the ''Indianapolis Times'' lists of people the Klan had paid. Partly as a result of compounded scandal, membership collapsed.
Throughout the 1930s, Democratic Party (United States), Democrats were in power and "the Klan was political poison". During those years, Indiana, like the rest of the nation, was affected by the Great Depression. The economic downturn had a wide-ranging negative impact on Indiana, such as the decline of urbanization. The Dust Bowl to the west led many migrants to flee to the more industrialized Midwest. Governor Paul V. McNutt's administration struggled to build a state-funded welfare system to help overwhelmed private charities. During his administration, spending and taxes were both cut drastically in response to the Depression, and the state government was completely reorganized. McNutt ended Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition in the state and enacted the state's first income tax. On several occasions, he declared martial law to put an end to worker strikes.
World War II helped lift Indiana's economy, as the war required steel, food and other goods the state produced.
[Pell, p. 31.] Roughly 10% of Indiana's population joined the armed forces, while hundreds of industries earned war production contracts and began making war material. Indiana manufactured 4.5% of total U.S. military armaments during World WarII, ranking eighth among the 48 states. The expansion of industry to meet war demands helped end the Great Depression.
Modern era
With the conclusion of World WarII, Indiana rebounded to pre-Depression levels of production. Industry became the primary employer, a trend that continued into the 1960s. Urbanization during the 1950s and 1960s led to substantial growth in the state's cities. The auto, steel and pharmaceutical industries topped Indiana's major businesses. Indiana's population continued to grow after the war, exceeding five million by the 1970 census. In the 1960s the administration of Matthew E. Welsh adopted its first sales tax of 2%. Indiana schools were desegregated in 1949. In 1950, the Census Bureau reported Indiana's population as 95.5% white and 4.4% black. Governor Welsh also worked with the General Assembly to pass the Indiana Civil Rights Bill, granting equal protection to minorities in seeking employment.
On December 8, 1964, a Convair B-58 carrying nuclear weapons slid off an icy runway on Grissom Air Reserve Base, Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Bunker Hill, Indiana and caught fire during a training drill. The five nuclear weapons on board were burned, including one 9-megaton thermonuclear weapon, causing radioactive contamination of the crash area.
Beginning in 1970, a series of amendments to the state constitution were proposed. With adoption, the Indiana Court of Appeals was created and the procedure of appointing justices on the courts was adjusted.
The 1973 oil crisis created a recession that hurt the automotive industry in Indiana. Companies such as Delco Electronics and Delphi (auto parts), Delphi began a long series of downsizing that contributed to high unemployment rates in manufacturing in Anderson, Indiana, Anderson, Muncie, Indiana, Muncie, and Kokomo, Indiana, Kokomo. The restructuring and deindustrialization trend continued until the 1980s when the national and state economy began to diversify and recover.
Geography
![National-atlas-indiana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/National-atlas-indiana.PNG)
With a total area (land and water) of , Indiana ranks as the 38th largest state in size.
The state has a maximum dimension north to south of and a maximum east to west dimension of . The state's geographic center (39° 53.7'N, 86° 16.0W) is in Marion County, Indiana, Marion County.
[
Located in the Midwestern United States, Indiana is one of eight states that make up the Great Lakes region (North America), Great Lakes Region. Indiana is bordered on the north by ]Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
, on the east by Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, and on the west by Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
, partially separated by the Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
. Lake Michigan borders Indiana on the northwest and the Ohio River separates Indiana from Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
on the south.
Geology and terrain
The average altitude of Indiana is about above sea level. The highest point in the state is Hoosier Hill in Wayne County, Indiana, Wayne County at above sea level.[ The lowest point at above sea level is in Posey County, Indiana, Posey County, where the ]Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
meets the Ohio River.[ The resulting List of U.S. states and territories by elevation, elevation span, , is the narrowest of any non-coastal U.S. state. Only have an altitude greater than and this area is enclosed within 14 counties. About have an elevation of less than , mostly concentrated along the Ohio and lower Wabash Valleys, from Tell City, Indiana, Tell City and Terre Haute, Indiana, Terre Haute to Evansville, Indiana, Evansville and Mount Vernon, Indiana, Mount Vernon.
The state includes two natural regions of the United States: the Central Lowlands and the Interior Low Plateaus.
The till plains make up the northern and central regions of Indiana. Much of its appearance is a result of elements left behind by glaciers. Central Indiana is mainly flat with some low rolling hills (except where rivers cut deep valleys through the plain, like at the Wabash River and Sugar Creek) and soil composed of glacial sands, gravel and clay, which results in exceptional farmland.] Northern Indiana is similar, except for the presence of higher and hillier terminal moraines and hundreds of kettle lakes. In northwest Indiana there are various sand ridges and dunes, some reaching nearly 200 feet in height; most of them are at Indiana Dunes National Park. These are along the Lake Michigan shoreline and also inland to the Kankakee Outwash Plain.
Southern Indiana is characterized by valleys and rugged, hilly terrain, contrasting with much of the state. Here, bedrock is exposed at the surface. Because of the prevalent Indiana limestone, the area has many caves, caverns, and quarries.
Hydrology
Major river systems in Indiana include the Whitewater, White, Blue, Wabash, St. Joseph, and Maumee rivers. According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, as of 2007, there were 65 rivers, streams, and creeks of environmental interest or scenic beauty, which included only a portion of an estimated 24,000 total river miles within the state.
The Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
, which is the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
, is the official river of Indiana. At in length, the river bisects the state from northeast to southwest, forming part of the state's border with Illinois, before converging with the Ohio River. The river has been the subject of several songs, such as On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away, ''On the Banks of the Wabash'', Wabash Cannonball, ''The Wabash Cannonball'' and Back Home Again in Indiana, ''Back Home Again, In Indiana''.
There are about 900 lakes listed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. To the northwest, Indiana borders Lake Michigan, one of five lakes comprising the Great Lakes, the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. Tippecanoe Lake, the deepest lake in the state, reaches depths at nearly , while Lake Wawasee is the largest natural lake in Indiana. At 10,750 acres (summer pool level), Lake Monroe (Indiana), Lake Monroe is the largest lake in Indiana.
Climate
In the past, almost all of Indiana had a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification, Dfb), with cold winters and hot, wet summers; only the extreme southern portion of the state lay within the humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification, Cfb), which receives more precipitation than other parts of Indiana. But as of the 2016 update, about half the state is now classified as humid subtropical. Temperatures generally diverge from the north and south sections of the state. In midwinter, average high/low temperatures range from around 30°F/15°F (−1°C/−10°C) in the far north to 41°F/24°F (5°C/−4°C) in the far south.
In midsummer there is generally a little less variation across the state, as average high/low temperatures range from around 84°F/64°F (29°C/18°C) in the far north to 90°F/69°F (32°C/21°C) in the far south. Indiana's record high temperature was 116°F (47°C) set on July 14, 1936, at Collegeville, Indiana, Collegeville. The record low was −36°F (−38°C) on 1994 North American cold wave, January 19, 1994 at New Whiteland, Indiana, New Whiteland. The growing season typically spans from 155 days in the north to 185 days in the south.
While droughts occasionally occur in the state, rainfall totals are distributed relatively equally throughout the year. Precipitation totals range from near Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana to along the Ohio River in the south, while the state's average is . Annual snowfall in Indiana varies widely across the state, ranging from in the northwest along Lake Michigan to in the far south. Lake effect snow accounts for roughly half the snowfall in northwest and north central Indiana due to the effects of the moisture and relative warmth of Lake Michigan upwind. The mean wind speed is .
In a 2012 report, Indiana was ranked eighth in a list of the top 20 tornado-prone states based on National Weather Service data from 1950 through 2011. A 2011 report ranked South Bend
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
15th among the top 20 tornado-prone U.S. cities, while another report from 2011 ranked Indianapolis eighth.Despite its vulnerability, Indiana is not part of Tornado Alley.
Time zones
Indiana is one of 13 U.S. states that are divided into more than one time zone. Indiana's time zones have fluctuated over the past century. At present most of the state observes Eastern Time Zone, Eastern Time; six counties near Chicago and six near Evansville observe Central Time Zone (North America), Central Time. Debate continues on the matter.
Before 2006, most of Indiana did not observe daylight saving time (DST). Some counties within this area, particularly Floyd County, Indiana, Floyd, Clark County, Indiana, Clark, and Harrison County, Indiana, Harrison counties near Louisville, Kentucky, and Ohio County, Indiana, Ohio and Dearborn County, Indiana, Dearborn counties near Cincinnati, Ohio, unofficially observed DST by local custom. Since April 2006 the entire state observes DST.
Indiana counties and statistical areas
Indiana is divided into 92 List of counties in Indiana, counties. , the state includes 16 metropolitan statistical area, metropolitan and 25 micropolitan statistical areas, 117 incorporated cities, 450 towns, and several other smaller divisions and statistical areas.[ Marion County, Indiana, Marion County and Indianapolis have a Unigov, consolidated city-county government.][
]
Major cities
Indianapolis is the capital of Indiana and its largest city. Indiana's four largest metropolitan areas are Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville, and South Bend. The table below lists the state's twenty largest municipalities based on the 2020 United States Census.
Demographics
Population
Indiana recorded a population of 6,785,528 in the 2020 United States census, a 4.65% increase since the 2010 United States Census.
The state's population density was 181.0 persons per square mile, the 16th-highest in the United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Indiana's population center is northwest of Sheridan, in Hamilton County, Indiana, Hamilton County (+40.149246, −086.259514).[
In 2005, 77.7% of Indiana residents lived in metropolitan counties, 16.5% lived in micropolitan counties and 5.9% lived in non-core counties.
]
Ancestry
German-American, German is the largest ancestry reported in Indiana, with 22.7% of the population reporting that ancestry in the census. Persons citing American ancestry, American (12.0%) and English-American, English ancestry (8.9%) are also numerous, as are Irish American, Irish (10.8%) and Poland, Polish (3.0%). Most of those citing American ancestry are actually of European descent, including many of English-American, English descent, but have family that has been in North America for so long, in many cases since the early British America, colonial era, that they identify simply as American. In the 1980 census 1,776,144 people claimed German ancestry, 1,356,135 claimed English ancestry and 1,017,944 claimed Irish ancestry out of a total population of 4,241,975 making the state 42% German, 32% English and 24% Irish.
Population growth
Population growth since 1990 has been concentrated in the counties surrounding Indianapolis, with four of the five fastest-growing counties in that area: Hamilton County, Indiana, Hamilton, Hendricks County, Indiana, Hendricks, Johnson County, Indiana, Johnson, and Hancock County, Indiana, Hancock. The other county is Dearborn County, Indiana, Dearborn County, which is near Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Hamilton County has also grown faster than any county in the states bordering Indiana (Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
, Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
, Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
), and is the 20th-fastest growing county in the country.
With a population of 829,817, Indianapolis is the largest city in Indiana and the 12th-largest in the United States, according to the 2010 census. Three other cities in Indiana have a population greater than 100,000: Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne (253,617), Evansville, Indiana, Evansville (117,429) and South Bend
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
(101,168). Since 2000, Fishers, Indiana, Fishers has seen the largest population rise amongst the state's twenty largest cities with an increase of 100%. Other cities that have seen extensive growth since 2000 are Greenwood, Indiana, Greenwood (81%), Noblesville, Indiana, Noblesville (39.4%), Carmel, Indiana, Carmel (21.4%), Columbus, Indiana, Columbus (12.8%) and Lawrence, Indiana, Lawrence (9.3%).
Gary, Indiana, Gary and Hammond, Indiana, Hammond have had the largest population declines regarding the 20 largest cities since 2000, with a decrease of 21.0% and 6.8% respectively. Evansville, Indiana, Evansville (−4.2%), Anderson, Indiana, Anderson (−4.0%) and Muncie, Indiana, Muncie (−3.9%) have also had declines.
Indianapolis has the largest population of the state's metropolitan areas and the Table of United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 33rd-largest in the country. The Indianapolis metropolitan area encompasses Marion County, Indiana, Marion County and nine surrounding counties in central Indiana.
''Note: Births in table don't add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.''
* Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic and Latino Americans, White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one ''Hispanic'' group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Based on population estimates for 2011, 6.6% of the state's population is under the age of five, 24.5% is under the age of 18, and 13.2% is 65 years of age or older. From the 2010 U.S. Census demographic data for Indiana, the median age is 37.
Median income
As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, Indiana's median household income was $44,616, ranking it 36th among the United States and the District of Columbia. In 2005, the median household income for Indiana residents was $43,993. Nearly 498,700 Indiana households had incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, accounting for 20% of all households.
Hamilton County's median household income is nearly $35,000 higher than the Indiana average. At $78,932, it ranks seventh in the country among counties with fewer than 250,000 people. The next highest median incomes in Indiana are also found in the Indianapolis suburbs; Hendricks County has a median of $57,538, followed by Johnson County at $56,251.
Religion
Although the largest single religious denomination in the state is Catholic (747,706 members), most Hoosiers are members of various Protestant denominations. The largest Protestant denomination by number of adherents in 2010 was the United Methodist Church, with 355,043. A study by the Graduate Center at the City University of New York found 20% are Catholic, 14% belong to Baptist churches, 10% are other Christians, 9% are Methodist, and 6% are Lutheran. The study found 16% are affiliated with Irreligion, no religion.
Indiana is home to the Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine St. Meinrad Archabbey, one of two Catholic archabbeys in the United States and 11 in the world. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod has one of its two seminaries in Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne. Two evangelical Methodist denominations, the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Church, are headquartered in Indianapolis, as is the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Church.
The Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches maintains offices and publishing work in Winona Lake, Indiana, Winona Lake. Huntington, Indiana, Huntington serves as the home to the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Anderson, Indiana, Anderson is home to the headquarters of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), Church of God. The headquarters of the Missionary Church is in Fort Wayne.
The Friends United Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the largest branch of American Quakerism, is based in Richmond, Indiana, Richmond, which also houses the oldest Quaker seminary in the United States, the Earlham School of Religion. The Islamic Society of North America is headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana, Plainfield.
Law and government
Indiana has a constitutional democratic republican form of government with three branches: the executive, including an elected governor and lieutenant governor; the legislative, consisting of an elected Bicameralism, bicameral General Assembly; and the judicial, the Supreme Court of Indiana, the Indiana Court of Appeals and circuit courts.
The Governor of Indiana serves as the state's chief executive and has the authority to manage the government as established in the Constitution of Indiana. The governor and the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, lieutenant governor are jointly elected to four-year terms, with gubernatorial elections running concurrently with United States presidential elections (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, etc.). The governor may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The governor works with the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Supreme Court to govern the state and has the authority to adjust the other branches. The governor can call special sessions of the General Assembly and select and remove leaders of nearly all state departments, boards and commissions. Other notable powers include calling out the Indiana Guard Reserve or the Indiana National Guard in times of emergency or disaster, issuing pardons or commuting the sentence of any criminal offenders except in cases of treason or impeachment and possessing an abundant amount of statutory authority.
The lieutenant governor serves as the President of the Senate and ensures the senate rules are acted in accordance with by its constituents. The lieutenant governor votes only when needed to break ties. If the governor dies in office, becomes permanently incapacitated, resigns or is impeached, the lieutenant governor becomes governor. If both the governor and lieutenant governor positions are unoccupied, the Senate President pro tempore becomes governor.
The Indiana General Assembly is composed of a 50-member Indiana Senate, Senate and 100-member Indiana House of Representatives, House of Representatives. The Senate is the upper house of the General Assembly and the House of Representatives is the lower house. The General Assembly has exclusive legislative authority within the state government. Both the Senate and the House can introduce legislation, with the exception that the Senate is not authorized to initiate legislation that will affect revenue. Bills are debated and passed separately in each house, but both houses must pass them before they can be submitted to the Governor. The legislature can nullify a veto from the governor with a majority vote of full membership in the Senate and House of Representatives. Each law passed by the General Assembly must apply without exception to the entire state. The General Assembly has no authority to create legislation that targets a particular community. The General Assembly can manage the state's judiciary system by arranging the size of the courts and the bounds of their districts. It also can oversee the activities of the executive branch of the state government, has restricted power to regulate the county governments within the state, and has exclusive power to initiate the method to alter the Indiana Constitution.
The Indiana Supreme Court is made up of five judges with a Indiana Court of Appeals, Court of Appeals composed of 15 judges. The governor selects judges for the supreme and appeals courts from a group of applicants chosen by a special commission. After serving for two years, the judges must acquire the support of the electorate to serve for a 10-year term. In nearly all cases, the Supreme Court does not have original jurisdiction and can hear only cases petitioned to it after being heard in lower courts. Local circuit courts are where most cases begin with a trial and the consequence is decided by the jury. The Supreme Court has original and sole jurisdiction in certain areas including the practice of law, discipline or disbarment of Judges appointed to the lower state courts, and supervision over the exercise of jurisdiction by the other lower courts of the State.
The state is divided into 92 County (United States), counties, which are led by a board of county commissioners. 90 counties in Indiana have their own circuit court with a judge elected for a six-year term. The remaining two counties, Dearborn and Ohio, are combined into one circuit. Many counties operate superior courts in addition to the circuit court. In densely populated counties where the caseload is traditionally greater, separate courts have been established to solely hear either juvenile, criminal, probate or small claims cases. The establishment, frequency and jurisdiction of these additional courts vary greatly from county to county. There are 85 city and town courts in Indiana municipalities, created by local ordinance, typically handling minor offenses and not considered courts of record. County officials elected to four-year terms include an auditor, recorder, treasurer, sheriff, coroner and clerk of the circuit court. All incorporated cities in Indiana have a mayor and council form of municipal government. Towns are governed by a town council and townships are governed by a township trustee and advisory board.
''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked Indiana first in the publication's inaugural 2017 Best States for Government listing. Among individual categories, Indiana ranked above average in budget transparency (#1), government digitization (#6), and fiscal stability (#8), and ranked average in state integrity (#25).
In a 2020 study, Indiana was ranked as the 10th hardest state for citizens to vote in.
Politics
From 1880 to 1924, a resident of Indiana was included in all but one presidential election. Indiana Representative William Hayden English was nominated for vice president and ran with Winfield Scott Hancock in the 1880 United States presidential election, 1880 election. Former Indiana Governor Thomas A. Hendricks was elected vice president in 1884. He served until his death on November 25, 1885, under President Grover Cleveland. In 1888, former Senator from Indiana Benjamin Harrison was elected president and served one term. He remains the only President from Indiana. Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks was elected vice president in 1904, serving under President Theodore Roosevelt until 1909. Fairbanks made another run for vice president with Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, but they both lost to Woodrow Wilson and former Indiana Governor Thomas R. Marshall, who served as vice president from 1913 until 1921. Not until 1988 did another presidential election involve a native of Indiana when Senator Dan Quayle was elected vice president and served one term with George H. W. Bush. Governor Mike Pence was elected vice president in 2016 and served one term with Donald Trump.
Indiana has long been considered a Republican Party (United States), Republican stronghold, particularly in Presidential races. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI) now rates Indiana as R+9. Indiana was one of only ten states to support Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940. On 14 occasions the Republican candidate has defeated the Democrat by a double-digit margin in the state, including six times where a Republican won the state by more than 20 percentage points. In 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush won the state by a wide margin while the election was much closer overall. The state has supported a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat for president only five times since 1900. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the first Democrat to win the state in the 20th century, with 43% of the vote. Twenty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the state with 55% of the vote over incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt won the state again in 1936. In 1964, 56% of voters supported Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater. Forty-four years later, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state against John McCain 50% to 49%. In the 2012 US presidential election, following election, Republican Mitt Romney won back the state for the Republican Party with 54% of the vote over the incumbent President Obama who won 43%.
While only five Democratic presidential nominees have carried Indiana since 1900, 11 Democrats List of Governors of Indiana, were elected governor during that time. Before Mitch Daniels became governor in 2005, Democrats had held the office for 16 consecutive years. Indiana elects two senators and nine representatives to Congress. The state has 11 electoral votes in presidential elections. Seven of the Indiana's congressional districts, districts favor the Republican Party according to the CPVI rankings; there are seven Republicans serving as representatives and two Democrats. Historically, Republicans have been strongest in the eastern and central portions of the state, while Democrats have been strongest in the northwestern part of the state. Occasionally, certain counties in the southern part of the state will vote Democratic. Marion County, Indiana's most populous county, supported the Republican candidates from 1968 to 2000, before backing the Democrats in the 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 elections. Indiana's second-most populous county, Lake County, strongly supports the Democratic party and has not voted for a Republican since 1972. In 2005, the Bay Area Center for Voting Research rated the most liberal and conservative cities in the United States on voting statistics in the 2004 presidential election, based on 237 cities with populations of more than 100,000. Five Indiana cities were mentioned in the study. On the liberal side, Gary, Indiana, Gary was ranked second and South Bend
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
came in at 83. Among conservative cities, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne was 44th, Evansville, Indiana, Evansville was 60th and Indianapolis was 82nd on the list.
Military installations
Indiana is home to several current and former Military base, military installations. The largest of these is the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, approximately 25 miles southwest of Bloomington, Indiana, Bloomington, which is the third-largest naval installation in the world, comprising approximately 108 square miles of territory.
Other active installations include Air National Guard fighter units at Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne, and Terre Haute airports (to be consolidated at Fort Wayne under the Base Realignment and Closure, 2005, 2005 BRAC proposal, with the Terre Haute facility remaining open as a non-flying installation). The Army National Guard conducts operations at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, Indiana, helicopter operations out of Shelbyville, Indiana, Shelbyville Airport and urban training at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. The Army's Newport Chemical Depot, which is now closed and turning into a coal purifier plant.
Indiana was formerly home to two major military installations; Grissom Air Force Base near Peru (realigned to an Air Force Reserve installation in 1994) and Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis, now closed, though the United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense continues to operate a large finance center there (Defense Finance and Accounting Service).
Culture
Arts
The last decades of the 19th century began what is known as the "golden age of Indiana literature", a period that lasted until the 1920s.[ Edward Eggleston wrote ''The Hoosier Schoolmaster'' (1871), the first best-seller to originate in the state. Many more followed, including Maurice Thompson's ''Hoosier Mosaics'' (1875) and Lew Wallace's ''Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Ben-Hur'' (1880). Indiana developed a reputation as the "American heartland" after the publication of several widely read novels, beginning with Booth Tarkington's ''The Gentleman from Indiana'' (1899), Meredith Nicholson's The Hoosiers (1900), and Thompson's ''Alice of Old Vincennes'' (1900).][ James Whitcomb Riley, known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the most popular poet of his age, wrote hundreds of poems with Hoosier themes, including ''Little Orphant Annie''. A unique art culture also began to develop in the late 19th century, beginning the Hoosier Group, Hoosier School of landscape painting and the Richmond Group of impressionist painters. The painters, including T. C. Steele, whose work was influenced by southern Indiana's colorful hills, were known for their use of vivid colors.] Prominent musicians and composers from Indiana also reached national acclaim, including Paul Dresser, whose most popular song, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away", was later adopted as the official state song.
Sports
Motorsports
Indiana has an extensive history with auto racing. Indianapolis hosts the Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...
mile race over Memorial Day weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every May. The name of the race is usually shortened to "Indy 500" and also goes by the nickname "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing". The race attracts more than 250,000 people every year, making it the largest single-day sporting event in the world. The track also hosts the Brickyard 400 (NASCAR) and the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix. From 2000 to 2007, it hosted the United States Grand Prix (Formula One). Indiana features the world's largest and most prestigious drag race, the NHRA U.S. Nationals, NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, held each Labor Day weekend at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in Clermont, Indiana. Indiana is also host to a major hydroplane racing, unlimited hydroplane racing power boat race circuits in the major H1 Unlimited league, the Madison Regatta (Madison, Indiana).
Professional sports
Indiana has produced more National Basketball Association (NBA) players per capita than any other state. Muncie has produced the most per capita of any American city, with two other Indiana cities in the top ten. It has a rich basketball heritage that reaches back to the sport's formative years. The NBA's Indiana Pacers play their home games at Gainbridge Fieldhouse; they began play in 1967 in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and joined the NBA when the leagues ABA-NBA merger, merged in 1976. Although James Naismith developed basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, high school basketball was born in Indiana. In 1925, Naismith visited an Indiana basketball state finals game along with 15,000 screaming fans and later wrote "Basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport." The 1986 film ''Hoosiers (film), Hoosiers'' is inspired by the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions 1954 Milan High School basketball team, Milan High School. Professional basketball player Larry Bird was born in West Baden Springs, Indiana, West Baden Springs and was raised in French Lick, Indiana, French Lick. He went on to lead the Boston Celtics to the NBA championship in 1981, 1984, and 1986.
Indianapolis is home to the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are members of the AFC South, South Division of the American Football Conference. The Colts have roots back to 1913 as the Dayton Triangles. They became an official team after moving to Baltimore, Maryland, MD, in 1953. In 1984, the History of the Baltimore Colts, Colts Baltimore Colts relocation controversy, relocated to Indianapolis, leading to an eventual rivalry with the Baltimore Ravens. After calling the RCA Dome home for 25 years, the Colts play their home games at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. While in Baltimore, the Colts won the Super Bowl V, 1970 Super Bowl. In Indianapolis, the Colts won Super Bowl XLI, bringing the franchise total to two. In recent years the Colts have regularly competed in the NFL playoffs.
Indiana was home to two charter members of the National Football League teams, the Hammond Pros and the Muncie Flyers. Another early NFL franchise, the Evansville Crimson Giants spent two seasons in the league before folding.
Professional teams
The following table shows the professional sports teams in Indiana. Teams in italic are in Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, major professional leagues.
The following is a table of sports venues in Indiana having a capacity in excess of 30,000:
College athletics
Indiana has had great sports success at the collegiate level.
In men's basketball, the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball, Indiana Hoosiers have won five NCAA national championships and 22 Big Ten Conference championships. The Purdue Boilermakers were selected as the national champions in 1932 before the creation of the tournament, and have won 23 Big Ten championships. The Boilermakers along with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have both won a national championship in women's basketball.
In college football, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have won 11 consensus national championships, as well as the Rose Bowl Game, Cotton Bowl Classic, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl. Meanwhile, the Purdue Boilermakers have won 10 Big Ten championships and have won the Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl.
Schools fielding NCAA Division I athletic programs include:
Economy and infrastructure
In 2017, Indiana had a civilian labor force of nearly 3.4million, the 15th largest in the United States. Indiana has an unemployment rate of 3.4%, lower than the national average. The total gross state product in 2016 was $347.2billion. A high percentage of Indiana's income is from manufacturing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 17% of the state's non-farm workforce is employed in manufacturing, the highest of any state in the U.S. The state's five leading exports were motor vehicles and auto parts, pharmaceutical products, industrial machinery, optical and medical equipment, and electric machinery.
Despite its reliance on manufacturing, Indiana has been less affected by declines in traditional Rust Belt manufacturers than many of its neighbors. The explanation appears to be certain factors in the labor market. First, much of the heavy manufacturing, such as industrial machinery and steel, requires highly skilled labor, and firms are often willing to locate where hard-to-train skills already exist. Second, Indiana's labor force is primarily in medium-sized and smaller cities rather than in very large and expensive metropolises. This makes it possible for firms to offer somewhat lower wages for these skills than would normally be paid. Firms often see in Indiana a chance to obtain higher than average skills at lower than average wages.
Business
In 2016, Indiana was home to seven Fortune 500 companies with a combined $142.5billion in revenue. Columbus, Indiana, Columbus-based Cummins, Inc. and Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company and Simon Property Group were recognized in ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' publication's "2017 World's Most Admired Companies List", ranking in each of their respective industries.
Northwest Indiana has been the largest steel producing center in the U.S. since 1975 and accounted for 27% of American-made steel in 2016.
Indiana is home to the international headquarters and research facilities of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company, Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, the state's largest corporation, as well as the world headquarters of Mead Johnson Nutritionals in Evansville. Indiana ranks fifth among all U.S. states in total sales and shipments of pharmaceutical products and second in the number of biopharmaceutical related jobs.
Indiana is in the U.S. Corn Belt and Grain Belt. It has a feedlot-style system raising corn to fatten hogs and cattle. Along with corn, soybeans are also a major cash crop. Its proximity to large urban centers, such as Indianapolis and Chicago, assure dairying, egg production, and specialty horticulture occur. Other crops include melons, tomatoes, grapes, mint, popping corn, and tobacco in the southern counties. Most of the original land was not prairie and had to be cleared of deciduous trees. Many parcels of woodland remain and support a furniture-making sector in southern Indiana.
In 2011, ''CEO'' magazine ranked Indiana first in the Midwest and sixth in the country for best places to do business.
Taxation
Tax is collected by the Indiana Department of Revenue.
Indiana has a flat state income tax rate of 3.23%. Many of the state's counties also collect income tax. The state sales tax rate is 7% with exemptions for food, prescription medications and over-the-counter medications. In some jurisdictions, an additional Food and Beverage Tax is charged, at a rate of 1% (Marion County's rate is 2%), on sales of prepared meals and beverages.
Property taxes are imposed on both real and personal property in Indiana and are administered by the Department of Local Government Finance. Property is subject to taxation by a variety of taxing units (schools, counties, townships, municipalities, and libraries), making the total tax rate the sum of the tax rates imposed by all taxing units in which a property is located. However, a "circuit breaker" law enacted on March 19, 2008, limits property taxes to 1% of assessed value for homeowners, 2% for rental properties and farmland, and 3% for businesses.
State budget
Indiana does not have a legal requirement to balance the state budget either in law or its constitution. Instead, it has a constitutional ban on assuming debt. The state has a Rainy Day Fund and for healthy reserves proportional to spending. Indiana is one of six U.S. states to not allow a Line-item veto in the United States, line-item veto.
Since 2010, Indiana has been one of a few states to hold Bond credit rating#Credit rating tiers, AAA bond credit ratings with the Big Three (credit rating agencies), Big Three credit rating agencies, the highest possible rating.
Energy
Indiana's power production chiefly consists of the consumption of fossil fuels, mainly coal. It has 24 coal power plants, including the country's largest coal power plant, Gibson Generating Station, across the Wabash River from Mount Carmel, Illinois. Indiana is also home to the coal-fired plant with the highest sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States, the R. Gallagher Generating Station, Gallagher power plant, just west of New Albany.
In 2010, Indiana had estimated coal reserves of 57 billion tons, and state mining operations produced 35 million tons of coal annually. Indiana also has at least 900 million barrels of petroleum reserves in the Trenton Gas Field, Trenton Field, though they are not easily recoverable. While Indiana has made commitments to increasing the use of renewable resources such as wind, hydroelectric, biomass, or solar power, progress has been very slow, mainly because of the continued abundance of coal in southern Indiana. Most of the new plants in the state have been coal gasification plants. Another source is hydroelectric power.
Wind power in Indiana, Wind power has been growing rapidly. Estimates in 2006 raised Indiana's wind capacity from 30 MW at 50 m turbine height to 40,000 MW at 70 m, and to 130,000 MW at 100 m, in 2010, the height of newer turbines. By the end of 2011, Indiana had installed 1,340 MW of wind turbines. In 2020, this total had more than doubled to 2,968 MW.
Transportation
Airports
Indianapolis International Airport serves the greater Indianapolis area. It opened in November 2008 and offers a midfield passenger terminal, concourses, air traffic control tower, parking garage, and airfield and apron improvements.
Other major airports include Evansville Regional Airport, Fort Wayne International Airport (which houses the 122d Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard), and South Bend International Airport. A long-standing proposal to turn Gary Chicago International Airport into Chicago's third major airport received a boost in early 2006 with the approval of $48million in federal funding over the next ten years.
No airlines operate out of Terre Haute Regional Airport but it is used for private planes. Since 1954, the 181st Fighter Wing of the Indiana Air National Guard was stationed there, but the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Proposal of 2005 stated the 181st would lose its fighter mission and F-16 aircraft, leaving the Terre Haute facility a general-aviation-only facility.
Louisville International Airport, across the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, serves southern Indiana, as does Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Kentucky. Many residents of Northwest Indiana, which is primarily in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, use Chicago's airports, O'Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway International Airport.
Highways
The U.S. List of Interstate Highways in Indiana, Interstate highways in Indiana are Interstate 64 in Indiana, I-64, Interstate 65 in Indiana, I-65, Interstate 265 in Indiana, I-265, Interstate 465, I-465, Interstate 865, I-865, Interstate 69 in Indiana, I-69, Interstate 469, I-469, Interstate 70 in Indiana, I-70, Interstate 74 in Indiana, I-74, Interstate 80 in Indiana, I-80, Interstate 90 in Indiana, I-90, Interstate 94 in Indiana, I-94, and Interstate 275 (Ohio–Indiana–Kentucky), I-275. The various highways intersecting in and around Indianapolis, along with its historical status as a major railroad hub, and the canals that once crossed Indiana, are the source of the state's motto, the Crossroads of America. There are also many List of U.S. Routes in Indiana, U.S. routes and List of State Roads in Indiana, state highways maintained by the Indiana Department of Transportation. These are numbered according to the same convention as U.S. Highways. Indiana allows highways of different classifications to have the same number. For example, I-64 and Indiana State Road 64 both exist (rather close to each other) in Indiana, but are two distinct roads with no relation to one another.
A $3 billion project extending I-69 is underway. The project was divided into six sections, with the first five sections (linking Evansville, Indiana, Evansville to Martinsville, Indiana, Martinsville) now complete. The sixth and final phase from Martinsville to Indianapolis is under construction. When complete, I-69 will traverse an additional through the state.
County roads
Most Indiana counties use a grid-based system to identify county roads; this system replaced the older arbitrary system of road numbers and names, and (among other things) makes it much easier to identify the sources of calls placed to the 9-1-1 system. Such systems are easier to implement in the glacially flattened northern and central portions of the state. Rural counties in the southern third of the state are less likely to have grids and more likely to rely on unsystematic road names (for example, Crawford, Harrison, Perry, Scott, and Washington Counties).
There are also counties in the northern portions of the state that have never implemented a grid or have only partially implemented one. Some counties are also laid out in an almost diamond-like grid system (e.g., Clark, Floyd, Gibson, and Knox Counties). Such a system is also almost useless in those situations as well. Knox County once operated two different grid systems for county roads because the county was laid out using two different survey grids, but has since decided to use road names and combine roads instead.
Notably, the county road grid system of St. Joseph County, whose major city is South Bend, uses perennial (tree) names (i.e. Ash, Hickory, Ironwood, etc.) in alphabetical order for north–south roads and presidential and other noteworthy names (i.e., Adams, Edison, Lincoln Way, etc.) in alphabetical order for east–west roads. There are exceptions to this rule in downtown South Bend and Mishawaka. Hamilton County's east–west roads continue Indianapolis's numbered street system from 96th Street at the Marion County line to 296th street at the Tipton County line.
Rail
Indiana has more than , of which 91% are operated by Class I railroads, principally CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway. Other ClassI railroads in Indiana include the Canadian National Railway and Soo Line Railroad, a Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiary, as well as Amtrak. The remaining miles are operated by 37 regional, local, and switching and terminal railroads. The South Shore Line (NICTD), South Shore Line is one of the country's most notable commuter rail systems, extending from Chicago to South Bend. Indiana is implementing an extensive rail plan prepared in 2002 by the Parsons Corporation. Many recreational trails, such as the Monon Trail and Cardinal Greenway, have been created from rails-to-trails, abandoned rails routes.
Ports
Indiana annually ships more than 70 million tons of cargo by water each year, which ranks 14th among all U.S. states. More than half of Indiana's border is water, which includes of direct access to two major freight transportation arteries: the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway (via Lake Michigan) and the Inland Waterway System (via the Ohio River). The Port of Indiana, Ports of Indiana manages three major ports which include Burns Harbor, Indiana, Burns Harbor, Jeffersonville, Indiana, Jeffersonville, and Mount Vernon, Indiana, Mount Vernon.
Education
Public schools
Indiana's 1816 constitution was the first in the country to implement a state-funded public school (government funded), public school system. It also allotted one township for a public university. However, the plan turned out to be far too idealistic for a pioneer society, as tax money was not accessible for its organization. In the 1840s, Caleb Mills pressed the need for tax-supported schools, and in 1851 his advice was included in the new state constitution. In 1843 the Legislature ruled that African Americans could not attend the public schools, leading to the foundation of Union Literary Institute and other schools for them, funded by donations or the students themselves. The Indiana General Assembly authorized separate but equal schools for Black students in 1869, and in 1877 language in the law changed to allow for integrated schools.
Although the growth of the public school system was held up by legal entanglements, many public elementary schools were in use by 1870. Most children in Indiana attend public schools, but nearly ten percent attend private schools and parochial schools. About half of all college students in Indiana are enrolled in state-supported four-year schools.
Indiana public schools have gone through several changes throughout Indiana's history. Modern, public school standards, have been implemented all throughout the state. These new standards were adopted in April 2014. The overall goal of these new state standards is to ensure Indiana students have the necessary skills and requirements needed to enter college or the workforce upon high school graduation. State standards can be found for nearly every major subject taught in Indiana public schools. Mathematics, English/Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies are among the top, prioritized standards. In 2022, the Indiana Department of Education reported that the state's overall graduation rate was 86.7%, down one percent from 2021.
The rate of Indiana high school students attending college fell to 53% in 2022, a significant decline from 65% in 2017. Indiana's college-going rates have fallen further than most states'. Trends reveal widening gaps for students of color and low-income families.
Vocational schools
Indiana has a strong vocational school system. Charles Allen Prossor, known as the father of vocational education in the United States, was from New Albany, Indiana, New Albany. The Charles Allen Prosser School of Technology is named in his honor. There are vocational schools in every region of Indiana, and most Indiana students can freely attend a vocational school during their high school years and receive training and job placement assistance in trade jobs. The International Union Of Operating Engineers (IUOE) has seven local unions in Indiana, offering apprenticeship and training opportunities. According to the Electrical Training Alliance website, there are ten electrical training centers in Indiana.
Colleges and universities
The largest educational institution is Indiana University, a multi-campus university system; its Indiana University Bloomington, flagship campus was endorsed as Indiana Seminary in 1820. Indiana State University was established as the state's Normal School in 1865; Purdue University was chartered as a land-grant university in 1869 and is also a multi-campus institution. The three other independent state universities are Vincennes University (founded in 1801 by the Indiana Territory), Ball State University (1918), and the University of Southern Indiana (1965 as ISU–Evansville).
Many of Indiana's private colleges and universities are affiliated with religious groups. The University of Notre Dame, Marian University (Indiana), Marian University, and the University of Saint Francis (Indiana), University of Saint Francis are popular Roman Catholic schools. Universities affiliated with Protestant denominations include Anderson University (Indiana), Anderson University, Butler University, Huntington University (United States), Huntington University, Manchester University (Indiana), Manchester University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Taylor University, Franklin College (Indiana), Franklin College, Hanover College, DePauw University, Earlham College, Valparaiso University, University of Indianapolis, and University of Evansville.
The state's community college system, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, serves nearly 200,000 students annually, making it the state's largest public post-secondary educational institution and the nation's largest singly accredited statewide community college system. In 2008, the Indiana University system agreed to shift most of its associate (2-year) degrees to the Ivy Tech Community College System.
The state has several universities ranked among the best by ''U.S. News & World Report''. The University of Notre Dame ranks among the top 20, Purdue University among the top 50, and Indiana University Bloomington among the top 100. Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has recently made it into the top 200 ''U.S. News & World Report'' rankings. Butler University, Butler, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, and the University of Evansville are ranked among the top ten in the Regional University Midwest Rankings. Purdue's engineering programs are ranked eighth in the country. In addition, Taylor University is ranked first in the Regional College Midwest Rankings and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has been considered the nation's top undergraduate engineering school for 24 consecutive years.
See also
* Index of Indiana-related articles
* Outline of Indiana
* List of people from Indiana
Notes
References
Bibliography
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* Madison, James H. ''Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2014.
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External links
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Indiana Constitution
Indiana Travel and Tourism Information
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