The
State of Indiana is the 19
th U.S. state and is located in the
midwestern region of the
United States of America. With about 6.3 million residents, it's ranked 14
th in
population and 17
th in
population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area.
Indiana is a diverse state with a few large urban areas and a number of smaller industrial cities. It is known for the
Indianapolis 500 automobile race, held annually over the
Memorial Day weekend, and a strong basketball tradition, often called
Hoosier Hysteria.
Residents of Indiana are called
Hoosiers. There are several ideas about the origin of the name. Linguists have traced it to England, where in one dialect it meant "farmer." Others have traced it to the Indiana workers who crossed the
Ohio River to work for Sam Hoosier during construction of the
Louisville and Portland Canal; these workers were known as "Hoosier's Men." Another story told to Indiana youths is that in the early 1800s, bar fights would break out in Indiana saloons, with many a man losing an ear. Someone would pick it up and ask "Whose ear?", which somehow evolved into Hoosier.
The state's name means "Land of the
Indians" and
Angel Mounds State Historic Site, one of the best preserved prehistoric
Native American sites in the
United States, can be found in southern Indiana near
Evansville.
Geography
Indiana is bounded on the north by
Lake Michigan and the state of
Michigan; on the east by
Ohio; on the south by
Kentucky, with which it shares the
Ohio River as a border; and on the west by
Illinois. Indiana is one of the
Great Lakes states.
The northern boundary of the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois was originally defined to be a latitudinal line drawn through the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan. Since such a line wouldn't provide Indiana with usable frontage on the lake, its northern border was shifted ten miles (16 km) north. The northern borders of Ohio and Illinois were also shifted from this original plan.
The 475 mile (764 km) long
Wabash River bisects the state from northeast to southwest and has given Indiana a few theme songs,
On the Banks of the Wabash,
The Wabash Cannonball and
Back Home Again, In Indiana. The Wabash is also the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi; from the Huntington dam to the Ohio River. The White River (a tributary of the Wabash, which is a tributary of the Ohio) zigzags through central Indiana.
There are 24
Indiana state parks, nine man-made reservoirs, and hundreds of lakes in the state. Areas under the control and protection of the
National Park Service or the
United States Forest Service include:
Northern Indiana
The northwest corner of the state is part of the
Chicago metropolitan area and has nearly one million residents.
Gary, and the cities and towns that make up the northern half of
Lake,
Porter, and
La Porte Counties bordering on
Lake Michigan, are effectively commuter suburbs of Chicago. Porter and Lake counties are commonly referred to as "The Calumet Region", or "The Region" for short. The name comes from the fact that the Grand Calumet and Little Calumet rivers run through the area. These counties are all in the Central
Time Zone along with Chicago.
NICTD owns and operates the
South Shore Line, a commuter rail line that runs electric-powered trains between
South Bend and
Chicago. Sand dunes and heavy industry share the shoreline of Lake Michigan in northern Indiana.
The
Kankakee River, which winds through northern Indiana, serves somewhat as a demarcating line between suburban northwest Indiana and the rest of the state.
The
South Bend metropolitan area, in north central Indiana, is the center of commerce in the region better known as
Michiana.
Fort Wayne, the state's second largest city, is located in the northeastern part of the state.
Central Indiana
The state capital,
Indianapolis, is situated in the central portion of the state. It is intersected by numerous
Interstates and
U.S. highways, giving the state its motto as "The Crossroads of America". Other cities and towns located within the area include
Anderson,
Bloomington,
Carmel,
Columbus,
Crawfordsville,
Danville,
Fishers,
Franklin,
Greenwood,
Greenfield,
Kokomo,
Lafayette,
Lebanon,
Mooresville,
Muncie,
Richmond,
Terre Haute, and
West Lafayette.
Rural areas in the central portion of the state are typically composed of a patchwork of
fields and
forested areas.
Southern Indiana
Evansville, the third largest city in Indiana, is located in the southwestern corner of the state. It is located in a
tri-state area that includes Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. The southeastern cities of
Clarksville,
Jeffersonville, and
New Albany are part of the
Louisville metropolitan area.
Vincennes, the oldest city in the state, is located on the
Wabash River.
Southern Indiana is a mixture of farmland and forest. The
Hoosier National Forest is a 200,000 acre (80,900 ha) nature preserve in south central Indiana. Southern Indiana's topography is more varied than that in the north and generally contains more hills and geographic variation than the northern portion, such as the "Knobs," a series of . hills that run parallel to the Ohio River in south-central Indiana.
Brown County is well-known for its hills covered with colorful autumn foliage, T.S. Eliot's former home, and
Nashville, the county seat and shopping destination.
The limestone geology of Southern Indiana has created numerous caves and one of the largest limestone quarry regions in the USA. Many of Indiana's official buildings, such as the State capitol building, the downtown monuments, the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, many buildings at Indiana University in Bloomington, and the Indiana Government Center are all examples of Indiana architecture made with Indiana limestone. Indiana limestone has also been used in many other famous structures in the US, such as the
University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium, the
Empire State Building, the
Pentagon, and the
Washington National Cathedral. In addition, 35 of the 50 state capitol buildings are also made of Indiana Limestone.
For sixty years, from 1890 to 1950, the United States Census found the
center of population to lie in southern Indiana.
Climate
Most of Indiana has a
humid continental climate (
Koppen climate classification Dfa), with hot, humid summers and cool to cold winters. The extreme southern portions of the state border on a
humid subtropical climate (Koppen
Cfa) with somewhat milder winters. Summertime maximum temperatures average around 85 °F (29 °C) with cooler nights around 60 °F (16 °C). Winters are a little more variable, but generally cool to cold temperatures with all but the northern part of the state averaging above freezing for the maximum January temperature, and the minimum temperature below 20 °F (-8 °C) for most of the state.The state receives a good amount of precipitation, 40 inches (1,000 mm) annually statewide, in all four seasons, with March through August being slightly wetter.
The state does have its share of severe weather, both winter storms and
thunderstorms. While generally not receiving as much snow as some states farther north, the state does have occasional
blizzards, some due to
lake effect snow. The state averages around 40-50 days of thunderstorms per year, with March and April being the period of most severe storms. While not considered part of
Tornado Alley, Indiana is the Great Lakes state which is most vulnerable to
tornadic activity. In fact, three of the most severe tornado outbreaks in U.S. history affected Indiana, the
Tri-State Tornado of 1925, the
Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965 and the
Super Outbreak of 1974. The
Evansville Tornado of November 2005 killed 25 people, 20 people in Vanderburgh County and 5 in Warrick County.
| Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures for Largest Indiana Cities |
| City |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| Evansville | 40/23 |
45/26 |
56/35 |
67/44 |
77/54 |
86/64 |
89/68 |
86/64 |
81/57 |
70/45 |
56/36 |
44/27
|
| Fort Wayne | 31/16 |
35/19 |
47/29 |
60/38 |
72/49 |
81/59 |
84/62 |
82/60 |
75/53 |
63/42 |
48/33 |
36/22
|
| Indianapolis | 34/18 |
40/22 |
51/32 |
63/41 |
74/52 |
82/61 |
86/65 |
84/63 |
77/55 |
66/44 |
52/34 |
39/24
|
| South Bend | 31/16 |
36/19 |
47/28 |
59/38 |
71/48 |
80/58 |
83/63 |
81/61 |
74/53 |
62/42 |
48/33 |
36/22
|
| Source: US Travel Weather |
History
The area of Indiana has been settled since before the development of the
Hopewell culture (ca. 100–400 CE). It was part of the
Mississippian culture from roughly the year 1000 up to 1400. The specific
Native American tribes that inhabited this territory at that time were primarily the
Miami and the
Shawnee. The area was claimed for
New France in the 17th century, handed over to the
Kingdom of Great Britain as part of the settlement at the end of the
French and Indian War, given to the
United States after the
American Revolution, soon after which it became part of the
Northwest Territory, then the
Indiana Territory, and joined the Union in 1816 as the 19th state. See
Northwest Indian War.
Indiana filled up from the Ohio River north. Migration, mostly from Kentucky and Ohio, was so rapid that by 1820 the population was 147,176, and by 1830 the sales of public lands for the previous decade reached 3,588,000 acres (5,600 sq mi; 14,500 km²) and the population was 343,031. It had more than doubled since 1820. The first state capital was in the southern Indiana city of
Corydon.
Transportation
Down the Mississippi and its tributaries (the Ohio and Wabash) was to be found the sole outlet for the increasing produce of the Middle West, whose waters drained into the great valley. Districts which were not upon streams navigable by even the lightest draught steamboat were economically handicapped. The small, flat boat was their main reliance. Roads suitable for heavy carriage were few up to the middle of the century. The expense and time attending shipment of merchandise from the east at that time were almost prohibitive. To meet this condition, the building of canals (espoused by the constitution of 1816) was long advocated, in emulation of Ohio which took example after New York State. In 1826, Congress granted a strip two and a half miles wide on each side of the proposed canal. A very extensive and ambitious scale of main and lateral canals and turnpikes was advocated in consequence.
Work began on the
Wabash and Erie Canal in 1832, on the
Whitewater Canal in 1836, on the Central in 1837. Bad financing and "bad times" nearly wrecked the whole scheme; yet, the Wabash and Erie Canal was completed from Toledo to Evansville. It was a great factor in the development of the state, although it brought heavy loss upon the bondholders with the advent of the railroad. Upon completion, the canal actually increased prices of farm products three or fourfold and reduced prices of household needs 60%, a tremendous stimulus to agricultural development. By 1840, the population of the upper Wabash Valley had increased from 12,000 to 270,000. The canal boat that hauled loads of grain east came back loaded with immigrants. In 1846, it's estimated that over thirty families settled every day in the state.
Manufacturing also developed rapidly. In the ten years between 1840 and 1850, the counties bordering the canal increased in population 397%; those more fertile, but more remote, 190%. The tide of trade, which had been heretofore to New Orleans, was reversed and went east. The canal also facilitated and brought emigration from Ohio, New York, and New England, in the newly established counties in the northern two-thirds of the state. Foreign immigration was mostly from Ireland and Germany. Later, this great canal fell into disuse, and finally was abandoned, as railway mileage increased.
In the next ten years, by 1840, of the public domain 9,122,688 acres (14,250 mi²; 36,918 km²) had been sold. But the state was still heavily in debt, although growing rapidly. In 1851 a new constitution (now in force) was adopted. The first constitution was adopted at a convention assembled at Corydon, which had been the seat of government since December, 1813. The original statehouse, built of blue limestone, still stands; but in 1821, the site of the present capital, Indianapolis, was selected by the legislature. It was in the wilds, sixty miles from civilization. By 1910, it was a city of 225,000 inhabitants, and was the largest inland steam and electric railroad center in the United States that wasn't located on a navigable waterway. No railroad reached it before 1847.
Demographics
As of 2006, Indiana had an estimated population of 6,313,520, which is an increase of 47,501, or 0.8%, from the prior year and an increase of 233,003, or 3.8%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 196,728 people (that is 541,506 births minus 344,778 deaths) and an increase due to net
migration of 51,117 people into the state.
Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 68,935 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 17,818 people.
The
center of population of Indiana is located in
Hamilton County, in the town of
Sheridan. Population growth since 1990 has been concentrated in the counties surrounding Indianapolis, with four of the top five fastest-growing counties in that area:
Hamilton,
Hendricks,
Johnson, and
Hancock. The other county is
Dearborn County, which is near
Cincinnati.
The
Evansville Area has experienced a shift in their population.
Evansville continues to lose population as of 2005 while
Vanderburgh has continued to grow by at least 3% a year. The other counties of the
Evansville Area have started to grow at an increasingly faster rate, especially
Gibson and
Warrick Counties who are becoming
Evansville's suburban counties.
Gibson County, long having been a very conservative, reluctant to grow county has seen at least two towns
Haubstadt and
Fort Branch starting to become "Bedroom Communities" like
Newburgh and
Chandler in
Warrick County. In addition, the two counties have seen their minority (in particular, their Asian African and Latin) populations just about double in the last 15 years as the area has started to become more receptive and tolerant of minorities.
As of 2005, the total population included 242,281 foreign-born (3.9%).
German is the largest ancestry reported in Indiana, with 22.7% of the population reporting that ancestry in the Census. Persons citing
"American" (12.0%) and
English ancestry (8.9%) are also numerous, as are
Irish (10.8%) and
Polish (3.0%).
Religion
Although the largest religious denomination in the state is
Roman Catholic, the state is predominantly various
Protestant denominations. A study by the Graduate Center found that 20% are Roman Catholic, 14% are
Baptist, 10% are
Christian, 9% are
Methodist, and 6% are
Lutheran. The study also found that 16% are
secular.
The state is home to the
University of Notre Dame and also has a strong parochial school system in the larger metropolitan areas. Southern Indiana is the home to a number of Catholic monasteries and one of the two archabbeys in the United States,
St. Meinrad Archabbey. Two conservative denominations, the
Free Methodist Church and the
Wesleyan Church, have their headquarters in Indianapolis as does the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Anderson is home to the headquarters of Church of God Ministries and Warner Press Publishing House.
Fort Wayne is the headquarters of the
Missionary Church. Ft. Wayne is also home to one of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's seminaries -
Concordia Theological Seminary. The
Islamic Society of North America is headquartered just off
Interstate 70 in
Plainfield, west of Indianapolis.
In 1906, the Census reported there were 938,405 members of different religious denominations; of this total, 233,443 were Methodists (210,593 of the Northern Church); 174,849 were Roman Catholics, 108,188 were Disciples of Christ (and 10,219 members of the Churches of Christ); 92,705 were Baptists (60,203 of the Northern Convention, 13,526 of the National (African American) Convention; 8,132 Primitive Baptists, and 6,671 General Baptists); 58,633 were Presbyterians (49,041 of the Northern Church, and 6,376 of the Cumberland Church—since united with the Northern); 55,768 were Lutherans (34,028 of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference, 8,310 of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio and other states), 52,700 were United Brethren (48,059 of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ; the others of the " Old Constitution ") and 21,624 of the German Evangelical Synod.
Cities and towns
| 30 Largest Cities |
2005 Population |
| Indianapolis |
784,118 |
| Fort Wayne |
223,341 |
| Evansville |
115,918 |
| South Bend |
105,262 |
| Gary |
98,715 |
| Hammond |
79,217 |
| Bloomington |
69,017 |
| Muncie |
66,164 |
| Lafayette |
60,459 |
| Carmel |
59,243 |
| Anderson |
57,500 |
| Fishers |
57,220 |
| Terre Haute |
56,893 |
| Elkhart |
52,270 |
| Mishawaka |
48,497 |
| Kokomo |
46,178 |
| Greenwood |
42,236 |
| Lawrence |
40,959 |
| Columbus |
39,380 |
| Noblesville |
38,825 |
| Richmond |
37,560 |
| Portage |
36,789 |
| New Albany |
36,772 |
| Michigan City |
32,205 |
| Merrillville |
31,525 |
| Goshen |
31,269 |
| East Chicago |
30,946 |
| Marion |
30,644 |
| Valparaiso |
29,102 |
| Jeffersonville |
28,621 |
Indianapolis is the capital of Indiana, near the geographic center of the state. Other
Indiana cities functioning as centers of
United States metropolitan areas include
Anderson,
Bloomington (home of
Indiana University's main campus),
Columbus,
Elkhart,
Evansville (home of
University of Evansville and
University of Southern Indiana),
Fort Wayne (home of
Concordia Theological Seminary),
Gary (home of
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore),
Kokomo,
Lafayette (adjoining
West Lafayette, home of
Purdue University),
Michigan City,
Muncie (home of
Ball State University),
South Bend (home of
University of Notre Dame), and
Terre Haute (home of
Indiana State University and
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology).
Indiana cities that function as centers of
United States micropolitan areas include
Angola,
Auburn,
Bedford,
Connersville,
Crawfordsville,
Decatur,
Frankfort,
Greensburg,
Huntington,
Jasper,
Kendallville,
Logansport,
Madison,
Marion,
New Castle,
North Vernon,
Peru,
Plymouth,
Richmond,
Scottsburg,
Seymour,
Vincennes,
Wabash,
Warsaw, and
Washington.
Other communities with populations of 10,000 or more include
Beech Grove,
Brownsburg,
Carmel,
Chesterton,
Clarksville,
Connersville,
Crawfordsville,
Crown Point,
Dyer,
East Chicago,
Fishers,
Franklin,
Goshen,
Greencastle,
Greenfield,
Greenwood,
Griffith,
Hammond,
Highland,
Hobart,
Jeffersonville,
Lake Station,
La Porte,
Lawrence,
Lebanon,
Martinsville,
Merrillville,
Mooresville,
Munster,
New Albany,
New Haven,
Noblesville,
Plainfield,
Portage,
Schererville,
Shelbyville,
Speedway,
Valparaiso (home of
Valparaiso University),
West Lafayette (home of
Purdue University),
Westfield, and
Zionsville.
The suburbs of Indianapolis include
Anderson,
Avon,
Beech Grove,
Brownsburg,
Carmel,
Clermont,
Danville,
Fishers,
Franklin,
Greenwood,
Lawrence,
Lebanon,
Noblesville,
Pendleton,
Plainfield,
Southport,
Speedway,
West Newton,
Whiteland, and
Zionsville.
The Indiana suburbs of
Chicago,
Illinois include
Crown Point,
Dyer,
East Chicago,
Gary,
Griffith,
Hammond,
Highland,
Hobart,
LaPorte,
Lowell,
Merrillville,
Michigan City,
Schererville,
Munster,
Valparaiso,
Portage,
Chesterton,
St. John, and
Whiting
The Indiana suburbs of
Louisville, Kentucky include
Clarksville,
Jeffersonville, and
New Albany.
Fort Wayne's Indiana suburbs include
Huntertown,
Leo-Cedarville,
Monroeville,
New Haven, and
Woodburn.
Evansville's Indiana suburbs include
Boonville,
New Harmony,
Newburgh,
Mt. Vernon, and
Princeton.
South Bend's Indiana suburbs include
Granger,
Mishawaka,
North Liberty,
Osceola,
Walkerton, and
Roseland.
Law and government
Indiana's government has three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The governor, elected for a four-year term, heads the executive branch. The General Assembly, the legislative branch, consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Indiana's fifty State Senators are elected for four-year terms and one hundred State Representatives for two-year terms. In odd-numbered years, the General Assembly meets in a sixty-one day session. In even-numbered years, the Assembly meets for thirty session days. The judicial branch consists of the Indiana Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, the Indiana Tax Court, and local
circuit courts.
Politics
The current
governor of Indiana is
Mitch Daniels, whose campaign slogan was "My Man Mitch," an appellation given by
President George W. Bush for whom Mitch Daniels was the director of the
Office of Management and Budget. He was elected to office on
November 2,
2004.
After 1964, when Indiana supported
Lyndon B. Johnson over
Barry Goldwater, Indiana has favored the Republican candidate in federal elections. Nonetheless, half of Indiana's governors in the 20th century were Democrats.
Indiana's delegation to the
United States House of Representatives isn't overly Republican as one might suspect. Instead, it has generally served as a bellwether for the political movement of the nation. For instance, Democrats held the majority of seats until the 1994 Republican Revolution, when Republicans took a majority. This continued until 2006, when three Republican congressmen were defeated in Indiana; (
Chris Chocola,
John Hostettler and
Mike Sodrel), giving the Democrats a majority of the delegation again.
Former governor and current U.S. Senator
Evan Bayh announced in 2006 his plans for a presidential exploratory committee. His father was a three-term senator who was turned out of office in the 1980
Reagan Revolution by conservative Republican (and future
Vice-President)
Dan Quayle, a native of the small town of
Huntington in the northeastern part of the state. However, Bayh announced that he wouldn't be seeking the Presidency on
December 16,
2006.
The state's U.S. Senators are Senior Sen.
Richard G. Lugar (
Republican) and Junior Sen.
B. Evans "Evan" Bayh III (
Democrat).
Economy
The total gross state product in 2005 was US$214 billion in 2000 chained dollars. Indiana's per capita income, as of 2005, was US$31,150. A high percentage of Indiana's income is from manufacturing. The Calumet region of
northwest Indiana is the largest
steel producing area in the U.S. Steelmaking itself requires generating very large amounts of electric power. Indiana's other manufactures include pharmaceuticals and medical devices, automobiles, electrical equipment, transportation equipment, chemical products, rubber,
petroleum and
coal products, and factory machinery.
Despite its reliance on manufacturing, Indiana has been much less affected by declines in traditional
Rust Belt manufactures 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 located 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. In other words, firms often see in Indiana a chance to obtain higher than average skills at lower than average wages.
Indiana is home to the international headquarters of pharmaceutical company
Eli Lilly in Indianapolis as well as the headquarters of Mead Johnson Nutritionals, a division of
Bristol-Myers Squibb, in Evansville.
Elkhart, in the north, has also had a strong economic base of pharmaceuticals, though this has changed over the past decade with the closure of Whitehall Laboratories in the 1990s and the planned drawdown of the large
Bayer complex, announced in late 2005. Overall, Indiana ranks fifth among all U.S. states in total sales and shipments of pharmaceutical products and second highest in the number of biopharmaceutical related jobs. Medical device manufacturers include
Zimmer in Warsaw and
Cook in Bloomington.
The state is located within the
Corn Belt and the state's agricultural methods and principal farm outputs reflect this: a feedlot-style system raising corn to fatten hogs and cattle.
Soybeans are also a major cash crop. Its proximity to large urban centers, such as
Chicago, assure that dairying, egg production, and specialty horticulture occur.
Specialty crops include melons, tomatoes, grapes, and mint. Most of the original land wasn't prairie and had to be cleared of deciduous trees. Many parcels of woodland remain and support a furniture-making sector in the southern portion of the state.
Indiana is becoming a leading state in the production of
biofuels, such as
ethanol and
biodiesel. Indiana now has 12 ethanol and 4 biodiesel plants located in the state.
Reynolds, locted north of
Lafayette is now known as BioTown, USA. The town is experimenting with using biofuels and organic fuels, such as those made with manure, to power the town.
In mining, Indiana is probably best known for its decorative
limestone from the southern, hilly portion of the state, especially from
Lawrence County (the home area of Apollo I astronaut
Gus Grissom). One of the many public buildings faced with this stone is
The Pentagon, and after the
September 11, 2001 attacks, a special effort was made by the mining industry of Indiana to replace those damaged walls with as nearly identical type and cut of material as the original facing. There are also large coal mines in the southern portion of the state. Like most Great Lakes states, Indiana has small to medium operating
petroleum fields; the principal location of these today is in the extreme southwest, though operational oil derricks can be seen on the outskirts of Terre Haute.
Indiana's economy is considered to be one of the most business-friendly in the U.S. This is due in part to its conservative business climate, low business taxes, relatively low union membership, and labor laws. The doctrine of
at-will employment, whereby an employer can terminate an employee for any or no reason, is in force.
Indiana has a flat state
income tax rate of 3.4%. Many Indiana counties also collect income tax. The state
sales tax rate is 6%.
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, cities and towns, libraries), making the total tax rate the sum of the tax rates imposed by all taxing units in which a property is located.
Transportation
Airports
Indianapolis International Airport serves the greater Indianapolis area and is currently in the process of a major expansion project. When fully completed, the airport will offer a new 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 122nd Fighter Wing of the
Air National Guard), and
South Bend Regional Airport. Although Fort Wayne is designated as an international airport, there are no international flights operating out of the facility. A long-standing proposal to turn the under-utilized
Gary Chicago International Airport into Chicago's third major airport received a boost in early 2006 with the approval of $48 million in federal funding over the next ten years.
The
Terre Haute International Airport has no airlines operating out of the facility but is used for private flying. Since 1954, the 181st Fighter Wing of the Indiana
Air National Guard has been stationed at the airport. However, the BRAC Proposal of 2005 stated that the 181st would lose its fighter mission and
F-16 aircraft, leaving the Terre Haute facility as a general-aviation only facility.
The southern part of the state is also served by the
Louisville International Airport across the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky.
Highways
The major U.S. Interstate highways in Indiana are
I-69,
I-65,
I-94,
I-70,
I-74,
I-64,
I-80, and
I-90. The various highways intersecting in and around
Indianapolis earned it the nickname "The Crossroads of America".
Rail
Indiana has over 4,255
railroad route miles, of which 91 percent are operated by Class I railroads,
principally
CSX Transportation and
Norfolk Southern. Other
Class I railroads in Indiana include
Canadian National and the
Soo Line, a
Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiary, as well as
Amtrak. The remaining miles are operated by 37 regional, local, and switching & terminal railroads. The
South Shore Line is one of the country's most notable commuter rail systems extending from
Chicago to
South Bend. Indiana is currently implementing an extensive rail plan that was prepared in 2002 by the
Parsons Corporation.
Ports
Indiana annually ships over 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
Ports of Indiana manages three major ports which include
Burns Harbor,
Jeffersonville, and
Mount Vernon.
Education
Indiana is known as the "Brain Bank of the Midwest" as Indiana's colleges and universities attract the fourth largest number of out-of-state students in the nation and the largest out-of-state student population in the midwest. In addition, Indiana is the third best state in the country at keeping high school seniors in-state as Indiana colleges and universities attract 88% of Indiana's college attendees. Indiana universities also lead the nation in the attraction of international students with Purdue University and Indiana University ranked #3 and #17 respectively in the total international student enrollment of all universities in the United States. This exceptional popularity is attributed to the high quality of the research and educational universities located in the state. The state's leading higher education institutions include
Indiana University,
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,
Purdue University,
University of Notre Dame,
Indiana-Purdue at Indianapolis,
Indiana Wesleyan University,
Butler University,
Ball State University,
Valparaiso University,
Wabash College, and
DePauw University among the many public and private institutions located in the state.
Unfortunately, the state has had difficulty retaining its college graduates, bringing the issue of
brain drain to the attention of Governor
Daniels.
Sports
Indiana has a rich
basketball heritage that reaches back to the formative years of the sport itself. Although
James Naismith invented basketball in
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, Indiana is where high school basketball was born. 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 is based on the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions
Milan High School.
Indiana has a long history with
auto racing. Indianapolis hosts the
Indianapolis 500 mile race over
Memorial Day weekend at
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 over 250,000 people every year. The track also hosts the
Allstate 400 at the Brickyard (
NASCAR) and the
United States Grand Prix (
Formula One).
Indiana has had great sports success at the collegiate level. Notably,
Indiana University has won five NCAA basketball championships and seven NCAA soccer championships and
Notre Dame has won 11 football championships. Schools fielding
NCAA Division I athletic programs include:
Miscellaneous topics
Military installations
Indiana was formerly home to two major military installations,
Grissom Air Force Base near Peru (reduced to reservist operations in 1994) and
Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis, now closed, though the
Department of Defense continues to operate a large finance center there.
Current active installations include
Air National Guard fighter units at
Fort Wayne, and
Terre Haute airports (to be consolidated at Fort Wayne under the
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 and helicopter operations out of
Shelbyville Airport. The
Crane Naval Weapons Center is in the southwest of the state and the Army's
Newport Chemical Depot, which is currently heavily involved in neutralizing dangerous chemical weapons stored there, is in the western part of the state. Also,
Naval Operational Support Center Indianapolis is home to several
Navy Reserve units as well as a
Marine Reserve unit and a small contingent of active and full-time-support reserve personnel.
Time zones
Prior to 2006, most of Indiana historically exempted itself from the observation of
daylight saving time (DST). Some counties within this area, particularly
Floyd,
Clark, and
Harrison counties near
Louisville, Kentucky, and
Ohio and
Dearborn counties near
Cincinnati, Ohio, observed daylight saving time unofficially and illegally by local custom. Due to the confusion of anyone not from Indiana, the state passed a bill in 2005 whereby the entire state began observing daylight saving time starting in April 2006. Residents and officials of Indiana continue to debate whether the state should be in the Central or Eastern Time Zone.
State symbols
State bird: Cardinal
State flower: Peony
State motto: Crossroads of America.
State poem: Indiana, by Arthur Franklin Mapes.
State song: On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away
State river: Wabash
State stone: Salem limestone
State tree: Tulip tree
State crop: Maize
Famous Hoosiers
Indiana is the home state of many astronauts, including Gus Grissom, Frank Borman, and David Wolf. The state was the birthplace of numerous entertainers and athletes including Larry Bird, John Mellencamp, Michael Jackson, Don Larsen, David Letterman, Axl Rose, David Lee Roth, and Scott Rolen. Other notable people who were in Indiana during a major part of their career include:
Jim Jones cult leader, mini Dictator and mass murderer
John Andretti, racecar driver
George Ade, humorist, newspaper columnist and playwright
George Ball, industrialist
Albert J. Beveridge, politician and historian
Larry Bird, basketball player, coach
Jason Baker, NFL Punter
Alison Bales, WNBA Player
Claude Bowers, politician and historian
Avery Brooks, Actor
Hoagland (Hoagy) Carmichael , composer
Jared Carter, poet
Rob Conway, WWE professional wrestler
Jim Davis, cartoonist
Eugene V. Debs, Socialist Presidential candidate
Nick Dinsmore, WWE professional wrestler
Mark Dismore, racecar driver
Theodore Dreiser, novelist
Paul Dresser, song writer
Katie Douglas, WNBA Player
Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, singer/songwriter
Edward Eggleston, author
Jessie Flower, actress
Vivica A. Fox, actress
Jared Fogle, Subway Sandwich Spokesperson
Brendan Fraser, actor
Jim Gaffigan, comedian
Katie Gearlds, WNBA player
Lillian Gilbreth, home economist
Ron Glass, Actor
Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver
Art Green, painter
Bob Griese, Football Player
Gus Grissom, astronaut
Rex Grossman, NFL Quarterback
Charles Halleck, politician
Lee Hamilton, politician
Benjamin Harrison, U.S. President
William Henry Harrison, U.S. President and General
Richard Hatcher, politician
James "Warrior" Hellwig, former wrestler/conservative activist
Don Herold, humorist and illustrator
Theodore Hesburgh, educator and religious leader
Jimmy Hoffa, American labor leader
Paul Hoffman, industrialist
Shannon Hoon, singer/musician
Michael Jackson, singer/songwriter
Shawn Kemp, basketball player
Alfred Kinsey, sex researcher
Don Larsen, baseball pitcher
David Letterman, tv personality
Eli Lilly, industrialist and philanthropist
Little Turtle, Miami Indian chief
Kenny Lofton, baseball player
Carole Lombard, actress
Shelley Long, actress
Richard Lugar, politician
Karl Malden, actor
Walter McCarty, Basketball Player
Jon McLaughlin, singer/songwriter
Steve McQueen, actor
Mick Mars, guitarist/musician
Thomas R. Marshall, Twenty-eighth U.S. Vice-President
Don Mattingly, baseball player
Brad Maynard, NFL punter
Travis Meeks, singer/musician
John Mellencamp, singer/musician
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