Area, 36,291 sq mi (93,994 sq km). Pop. (2000) 6,080,485, a 9.7% increase since the 1990 census. Capital and largest city, Indianapolis. Statehood, Dec. 11, 1816 (19th state). Highest pt., 1,257 ft (383 m), Wayne co.; lowest pt., Ohio River, 320 ft (98 m). Nickname, Hoosier State. Motto, Crossroads of America. State bird, cardinal. State flower, peony. State tree, tulip poplar. Abbr., Ind.; IN
Northern Indiana is a glaciated lake area, separated by the Wabash River from the central agricultural plain, which is rich with deep glacial drift. The southern portion of the state is a succession of bottomlands interspersed with knolls and ridges, gorges and valleys. Limestone caves, such as the big Wyandotte Cave, and mineral springs, as at French Lick and West Baden Springs, are found there. The unglaciated soil is shallow in S Indiana, and the cutting of timber has caused erosion, but there is still extensive farming.
The capital and largest city is Indianapolis, in the central part of the state. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, with a 3-mi (4.8-km) frontage on Lake Michigan, is noted for its beautiful shifting sand dunes. Formerly a state park, the area was made a National Lakeshore in 1966. Four years earlier, in 1962, the U.S. Congress authorized the establishment of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in S Indiana. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the site of the famous 500-mi (800-km) auto race, held annually.
Although Indiana is primarily a manufacturing state, about three quarters of the land is utilized for agriculture. With a growing season of about 170 days and an average rainfall of 40 in. (102 cm) per year, Indiana farms have rich yields. Grain crops, mainly corn and wheat, are important and also support livestock and dairying industries. Soybeans and hay are also principal crops, and popcorn and widely varied vegetables and fruits are also produced. Hogs, eggs, and cattle are also important. Meatpacking is chief among the many industries related to agriculture. Although the urban population exceeds the rural, many towns are primarily service centers for agricultural communities.
There are, however, cities with varied heavy industries; prominent, besides Indianapolis, are Evansville, Fort Wayne, Gary, Kokomo, South Bend, and Terre Haute. These cities were among the highest in the nation in unemployment during the recession of the early 1980s. Indiana's leading manufactures are iron and steel, electrical equipment, transportation equipment, nonelectrical machinery, chemicals, food products, and fabricated metals. Rich mineral deposits of coal and stone (the S central Indiana area is the nation's leading producer of building limestone) have encouraged construction and industry.
Throughout the state the products of farms and factories are transported by truck and by train. Indiana calls itself the crossroads of America, and its extreme northwest corner—where transportation lines head east after converging on nearby Chicago from all directions—is one of the most heavily traveled areas in the world in terms of rail, road, and air traffic. Waterborne traffic is also important; improvements on the Ohio River and the opening (1959) of the St. Lawrence Seaway have benefited the state. With the opening in 1970 of the Burns Waterway Harbor on Lake Michigan, Indiana gained its first public port and enhanced its shipping facilities.
Indiana's constitution dates from 1851 and provides for an elected executive and legislature. A governor serves as the chief executive for a term of four years. The legislature, called the general assembly, has a senate with 50 members and a house of representatives with 100 members. Indiana elects 9 representatives and 2 senators to the U.S. Congress and has 11 electoral votes.
During the 20th cent. Indiana has been generally conservative and Republican, although Democrats have had some successes in gubernatorial and congressional elections. Evan Bayh, elected governor in 1988 and 1992, was succeeded by another Democrat, Frank O'Bannon, elected in 1996 and reelected in 2000. Lt. Gov. Joseph E. Kernan, also a Democrat, succeeded O'Bannon when the latter died in 2003, but Kernan lost to Republican Mitch Daniels in 2004. Daniels was reelected in 2008.
Among the institutions of higher learning in Indiana are Indiana Univ., at Bloomington; Purdue Univ., at West Lafayette; the Univ. of Notre Dame, near South Bend; Indiana Univ./Purdue Univ. at Indianapolis (IUPUI); Indiana State Univ., at Terre Haute; DePauw Univ., at Greencastle; Butler Univ., at Indianapolis; Valparaiso Univ., at Valparaiso; Wabash College, at Crawfordsville; Earlham College, at Richmond; and Goshen College, at Goshen.
The Mound Builders were Indiana's earliest known inhabitants, and the remains of their culture have been found along Indiana's rivers and bottomlands. The region was first explored by Europeans, notably the French, in the late 17th cent. The leading French explorer was Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, who came to the area in 1679. At the time of exploration, the area was occupied mainly by Native American groups of the Miami, Delaware, and Potawatamie descents. Vincennes, the first permanent settlement, was fortified in 1732, but for the first half of the 1700s, most of the settlers in the area were Jesuit missionaries or fur traders.
By the Treaty of Paris of 1763 ending the French and Indian Wars, Indiana, then part of the area known as the Old Northwest, passed from French to British control. Along with the rest of the Old Northwest, Indiana was united with Canada under the Quebec Act of 1774 (see Intolerable Acts). During the American Revolution an expedition led by George Rogers Clark captured, lost, and then recaptured Vincennes from the British. By the Treaty of Paris of 1783 ending the Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded the Old Northwest to the United States.
Indiana was still largely unsettled when the Northwest Territory, of which it formed a part, was established in 1787. Native Americans in the territory resisted settlement, but Gen. Anthony Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794 effectively ended Native American resistance in the Old Northwest. U.S. forces led by Gen. William Henry Harrison also defeated the Native American forces in the battle of Tippecanoe (1811) in the Wabash country.
Indiana Territory and StatehoodIn 1800, Indiana Territory was formed and included the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and parts of Michigan and Minnesota. Vincennes was made the capital, which in 1813 was moved to Corydon. A constitutional convention met in 1816, and Indiana achieved statehood. Jonathan Jennings, an opponent of slavery, was elected governor. Indianapolis was laid out as the state capital, and the executive moved there in 1824-25.
Indiana was the site of several experimental communities in the early 19th cent., notably the Rappite (1815) and Owenite (1825) settlements at New Harmony. In the 1840s the Wabash and Erie Canal opened between Lafayette and Toledo, Ohio, giving Indiana a water route via Lake Erie to eastern markets. Also in the 1840s the state's first railroad line was completed between Indianapolis and Madison. The Hoosier spirit of simplicity and forthrightness that developed during Indiana's early years of statehood figured in the writings of Edward Eggleston in The Hoosier Schoolmaster and was represented in much later days by James Whitcomb Riley, George Ade, Gene Stratton Porter, and also in the nostalgic lyric by Paul Dresser (brother of Indiana-born novelist Theodore Dreiser) for the song "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away."
The Civil War and Its AftermathThe Civil War brought great changes in the state. In the elections of 1860, Indiana voted for Lincoln, who had spent his boyhood in the Hoosier state. Although there was some proslavery sentiment in Indiana, represented by the Knights of the Golden Circle, Oliver P. Morton, governor during the war, held the state unswervingly to the Union cause even after constitutional government broke down in 1862. General John Hunt Morgan led a Confederate raid into Indiana in 1863, but otherwise little action occurred in the state.
Manufacturing, which had been stimulated in Indiana by the needs of the war, developed rapidly after the war. Factories sprang up, and the old rustic pattern was broken. However, Indiana's farmers continued to be an important force in the state, and in the hard times following the Panic of 1873 indebted farmers expressed their discontent by supporting the Granger movement and later the Greenback party in 1876 and the Populist party in the 1890s.
Industrialization and the Labor MovementIndustrial development came to the Calumet region along Indiana's Lake Michigan shoreline in the late 19th cent. Marshy wastelands were drained and transformed into an area supporting a complex of factories and oil refineries. As the 19th cent. drew to a close, industry continued to expand and the growing numbers of industrial workers in the state sought to organize through labor unions. Eugene V. Debs, one of the great early labor leaders, was from Indiana, and the labor movement at Gary in the Calumet area figured prominently in the nationwide steel strike just after World War I. Indiana was an early leader in the production of automobiles. Before Detroit took control of the industry in the 1920s, Indiana boasted over 300 automobile companies.
Indiana society in the first half of the 20th cent. has been described in a number of studies and books. The classic sociological study by Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd of an American manufacturing town, Middletown (1929), was based on data from Muncie, Ind. Midwestern life and American boyhood were portrayed realistically, and often with humor and optimism, in the novels of Booth Tarkington. Another Indiana author, Theodore Dreiser, wrote more generally of American society in a changing age. In the 1930s and 1940s, Wendell Willkie and Ernie Pyle, both natives of Indiana, became nationally prominent figures in politics and journalism, respectively.
Although Indiana in the latter half of the 19th cent. was regarded as a "swing state" electorally, it has generally been conservative throughout the 1900s. Republican J. Danforth "Dan" Quayle, elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 and 1986, was elected vice president of the United States in 1988. From the 1980s through the mid-1990s, the northern industrial portion of the state experienced a period of significant decline, along with the rest of the midwestern "rust belt." However, the area around Indianapolis experienced significant growth with a diversified economy.
See H. H. Peckham, Indiana, a History (1978); J. S. Blue, Hoosier Wit & Wisdom (1985); E. E. Lyon and L. Dillon, Indiana: The American Heartland (1986); J. H. Madison, The Indiana Way (1986); R. M. Taylor, Jr., et al., Indiana: A New Historical Guide (1989).
(born Sept. 13, 1928, New Castle, Ind., U.S.) U.S. painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. After studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, he settled in New York City and became a leading exponent of Pop art. He achieved wide recognition for paintings and prints featuring geometric shapes emblazoned with lettering and vivid colours. In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film Eat and was commissioned to produce an EAT sign for the New York pavilion at the New York World's Fair. His most famous image, LOVE, first lettered on canvas in 1965, became a universal symbol for the hippie generation.
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(born Sept. 13, 1928, New Castle, Ind., U.S.) U.S. painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. After studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, he settled in New York City and became a leading exponent of Pop art. He achieved wide recognition for paintings and prints featuring geometric shapes emblazoned with lettering and vivid colours. In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film Eat and was commissioned to produce an EAT sign for the New York pavilion at the New York World's Fair. His most famous image, LOVE, first lettered on canvas in 1965, became a universal symbol for the hippie generation.
Learn more about Indiana, Robert with a free trial on Britannica.com.
State (pop., 2000: 6,080,485), midwestern U.S. Bordered by Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois, it covers 36,420 sq mi (94,328 sq km). Its capital is Indianapolis. The Wabash River and the Ohio River define its southwestern and southern borders, respectively; Lake Michigan lies to the northwest. Indiana was originally inhabited by Indians speaking Algonquian languages, including the Miami, Potawatomi, and Delaware peoples. The French explorer La Salle explored the region in 1679 and claimed it for France. It passed to Britain in 1763 and then to the U.S. in 1783, and it became a territory in 1800. In 1811 U.S. forces won a final victory over the Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe. After it was admitted to the Union as the 19th state in 1816, its population began to grow. From 1850 its agriculture expanded, as did industrialization after the American Civil War. For much of the 20th century, steelmaking (see Gary) was important economically.
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Indiana is a diverse state with a few large urban areas, a number of smaller industrial cities, and many small towns. It is known nationally for its sports teams and athletic events: the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, champions of Super Bowl XLI, the NBA's Indiana Pacers, the Indianapolis 500 motorsports race, the largest single-day sporting event in the world, and for a strong basketball tradition, often called Hoosier Hysteria.
Residents of Indiana are known as Hoosiers. Although many stories are told, the origin of the term is unknown. The state's name means "Land of the Indians", or simply "Indian Land". The name dates back to at least the 1768 Indiana Land Company, and was first used by Congress when Indiana Territory was created, at which time the territory was unceded Indian land. Angel Mounds State Historic Site, one of the best preserved prehistoric Native American sites in the United States, can be found in south-western Indiana near Evansville.
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 would not 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 before flowing south, mostly along the Indiana-Illinois border. The river has given Indiana a few theme songs, such as 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:
The area is marked with swell and swale topography as it retreats South from Lake Michigan. The ecology can change dramatically between swells, or on opposite sides of the same swell. Plants and animals adapted to marshes are generally found in the swales, while forests or even prickly pear cactus are found in the dryer swells.
The Kankakee River, which winds through northern Indiana, serves somewhat as a demarcating line between suburban northwest Indiana and the rest of the state. Before it was drained and developed for agriculture, the Kankakee Marsh was one of the largest freshwater marshes in the country. South of the Kankakee is a large area of prairie, the eastern edge of the Grand Prairie that covers Iowa and Illinois. The Prairie Chicken and American Bison were common in Indiana's pioneer era, but are now extinct as wild species within the state.
The South Bend metropolitan area, in north central Indiana, is the center of commerce in the region better known as Michiana. Other cities located within the area include Elkhart, Mishawaka, Goshen and Warsaw. Fort Wayne, the state's second largest city, is located in the northeastern part of the state where it serves the state as a transportation hub. Other cities located within the area include Huntington and Marion. East of Fort Wayne is an area of extremely flat land that, before development, was the western-most reach of the Great Black Swamp.
Northeastern Indiana is home to a number of lakes, many of which are the remains of the glaciers that covered Indiana thousands of years ago and Glacial Lake Maumee. Some of these lakes include Lake James in Pokagon State Park, Lake Maxinkuckee, Lake Wawasee and Lake Tippecanoe. Lake Wawasee is the largest natural lake in Indiana, while Lake Tippecanoe is the deepest lake, reaching depths of over . Both lakes are located in Kosciusko County. Chain O' Lakes State Park, located in Noble County, contains 11 lakes, 8 of which are connected by natural channels.
Rural areas in the central portion of the state are typically composed of a patchwork of fields and forested areas. The geography of Central Indiana consists of gently rolling hills and sandstone ravines carved out by the retreating glaciers. Many of these ravines can be found in west-central Indiana, specifically along Sugar Creek in Turkey Run State Park and Shades State Park.
Southern Indiana is a mixture of farmland, forest and very hilly areas, especially near Louisville and in the south central lime hills areas. 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. The bottomlands of Indiana, where the Wabash and Ohio converge, hosts numerous plant and animal species normally found in the Lower Mississippi and Gulf Coast region of the United States. Brown County is well-known for its hills covered with colorful autumn foliage, T.C. Steele's former home, and Nashville, the county seat and shopping destination. Harrison and Crawford Counties boast three of the state's most popular commercial caves at Wyandotte, Marengo, and Squire Boone Caverns.
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 Indiana University's 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.
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. Two major paralyzing snowstorms bear merit. The January, 1978 Blizzard, which affected almost the entire state, and the December, 2004 Blizzard, which primarily affected the Ohio Valley and later caused the severe flooding of the White, Wabash, and the Ohio Rivers in January, 2005. 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 | ||||||||||||
At the time the United States took possession of Indiana, there were only two permanent European settlements in the entire territory, Clark's Grant and Vincennes. The United States immediately set to work to develop Indiana. In 1800, the Indiana Territory was established and steadily settled. It was originally placed under the governorship of William Henry Harrison who oversaw the purchase of millions of acres of land from the native tribes and successfully guided the territory through Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812.
Indiana was admitted to the Union in 1816 as the nineteenth state. Following statehood, the new government set out on an ambitious plan to transform Indiana from a wilderness frontier into a developed, well populated, and thriving state. The state's founders initiated a program that led to the construction of roads, canals, railroads, and state funded public schools. The plans nearly bankrupted the state and were a financial disaster, but increased land and produce value more than four-fold. During the 1850s, the state's population grew to exceed one million and the ambitious program of the state founders was finally realized.
During the American Civil War, Indiana became politically influential and played an important role in the affairs of the nation. As the first western state to mobilize for the war, Indiana's soldiers were present in almost every engagement during the war. After the Civil War, Indiana remained important nationally as it became a critical swing state in U.S. Presidential elections, which decided control of the federal government for three decades. Following the Civil War, Indiana industry began to grow and an accelerated rate across the northern part of the state leading to the formation of labor unions and suffrage movements.
During the early 20th century, Indiana developed into a strong manufacturing state, then experienced setbacks during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The state also saw many developments with the construction of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the takeoff of the auto industry in the state, substantial urban growth, and two major United States wars. Economic recovery began during World War II and the state continued to enjoy substantial growth. During the second half the of the 20th century, Indiana became a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, as Eli Lilly and other companies settled in the state.
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 of Southwestern Indiana have started to grow at an increasingly faster rate, especially Gibson and Warrick Counties who are becoming Evansville's suburban counties. Gibson 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, Asian, African-American, and Hispanic) populations just about double in the last 15 years. 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%).
The state is home to the University of Notre Dame and several other private, religiously affiliated schools. It 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). The Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches maintains offices and publishing work in Winona Lake. Huntington serves as the home to the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Anderson is home to the headquarters of the Church of God (Anderson) Ministries and Warner Press Publishing House. Fort Wayne is the headquarters of the Missionary Church. Fort Wayne is also home to one of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's seminaries - Concordia Theological Seminary. The Friends United Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the largest branch of American Quakerism, is based in Richmond. Richmond also houses the oldest Quaker seminary in the US, the Earlham School of Religion. Indiana is home to an estimated 250,000 Muslims. 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.
| Rank | City | 2007 Population | 2007 Metro Population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indianapolis | 795,458 | 2,014,267 | |
| 2 | Fort Wayne | 251,247 | 410,070 | |
| 3 | Evansville | 116,253 | 349,717 | |
| 4 | South Bend | 104,069 | 316,639 | |
| 5 | Gary | 96,429 | 698,971 | |
| 6 | Hammond | 77,175 | * | |
| 7 | Bloomington | 72,254 | 183,733 | |
| 8 | Carmel | 68,677 | ** | |
| 9 | Muncie | 65,410 | 115,419 | |
| 10 | Fishers | 65,382 | ** | |
| 11 | Lafayette | 63,679 | 192,161 | |
| 12 | Terre Haute | 58,932 | 169,346 | |
| 13 | Anderson | 57,311 | 131,312 | |
| 14 | Elkhart | 52,647 | 197,942 | |
| 15 | Mishawaka | 49,439 | *** | |
| *Gary Metro, **Indianapolis Metro, ***South Bend Metro | ||||
Indiana Government has three branches: executive (government), legislative (parliament) and judicial. The governor of Indiana, elected for a four-year term, heads the government. The Indiana General Assembly, the legislative branch, consists of the upper house, Senate, and the lower house, 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, it meets for thirty session days. The judicial branch consists of the Indiana Supreme Court, Indiana Court of Appeals, the Indiana Tax Court, and local circuit courts.
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.
Indiana has long been considered to be a Republican stronghold. It has only supported a Democrat for president four times since 1900 - in 1912, 1932, 1936 and 1964. Nonetheless, half of Indiana's governors in the 20th century were Democrats.
Historically, Republicans have been strongest in the eastern and central portions of the state, as well as the suburbs of the state's major cities. Democrats have been strongest in the northwestern and southern parts of the state along with the major cities. However, outside of Indianapolis, the Chicago suburbs, and Bloomington, the state's Democrats tend to be somewhat more conservative than their counterparts in the rest of the country, especially on social issues.
Indiana's delegation to the United States House of Representatives is not overly Republican either. 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 Huntington in the northeastern part of the state. However, Bayh announced that he would not be seeking the Presidency on December 16, 2006.
The state's U.S. Senators are Senior Sen. Richard Lugar (Republican) and Junior Sen. Evan Bayh (Democrat). Both Senators, although of opposite parties, have proved immensely popular in the state. In 2004, Sen. Bayh won reelection to a second term with 62% of the vote. And in 2006, Sen. Lugar won reelection to a sixth term with 87% of the vote against no major-party opposition.
| District | Representative | Party | Residence | First Took Office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana 1 | Pete Visclosky | Democrat | Merrillville | January 1985 |
| Indiana 2 | Joe Donnelly | Democrat | Granger | January 2007 |
| Indiana 3 | Mark Souder | Republican | Grabill | January 1995 |
| Indiana 4 | Steve Buyer | Republican | Plainfield | January 1993 |
| Indiana 5 | Dan Burton | Republican | Indianapolis | January 1983 |
| Indiana 6 | Mike Pence | Republican | Columbus | January 2001 |
| Indiana 7 | André Carson | Democrat | Indianapolis | March 2008 |
| Indiana 8 | Brad Ellsworth | Democrat | Evansville | January 2007 |
| Indiana 9 | Baron Hill | Democrat | Seymour | January 1999 |
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 was not 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, located 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 7%. 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. However, a law enacted on March 19, 2008 limits property taxes to one percent of assessed value for homeowners, two percent for rental properties and farmland and three percent for businesses.
Indiana has six hydroelectric dams. The Norway and Oakdale Dams near Monticello provide electrical power, recreation, and other benefits to local citizens. The Norway Dam created Lake Shafer and the Oakdale Dam created Lake Freeman. The Markland Dam, on the Ohio River, near Vevay, Indiana also produces electricity. The city of Wabash was the first electrically lighted city in the country.
Solar power and wind power are being investigated, and geothermal power is being used commercially. New estimates in 2006 raised the wind capacity for Indiana from 30 MW at 50 m turbine height to 40,000 MW at 70 m, which could double at 100 m, the height of newer turbines. As of the end of June, 2008, Indiana has installed 130 MW of wind turbines and has under construction another 400 MW.
| Fuel | Capacity | Percent of Total Consumed | Percent of Total Production | Number of Plants/Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal | 19,500MW | 63.0000% | 88.5000% | 24 Plants |
| Natural Gas | 2,100MW | 29.0000% | 10.5000% | 12 Units / 2 plants |
| Petroleum | 575MW | 7.5000% | 1.5000% | 10 Units |
| Hydroelectric | 64MW | 0.0450% | 0.0100% | 1 Plant |
| Biomass | 20MW | 0.0150% | 0.0020% | 2 units |
| Wood & Waste | 18MW | 0.0013% | 0.0015% | 3 Units |
| Wind | ?MW | ?% | ?% | 1 Farms/87 Towers |
| Geothermal and/or Solar | 0MW | 0.0% | 0.0 | No Facilities at this time |
| Nuclear | 0MW | 0.0% | 0.0 | No Facilities |
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. 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. The southeastern part of the state is served by the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport also across the Ohio River in Florence Ky. Many residents of northwestern Indiana use the two Chicago airports, O'Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway International Airport.
There are also many state highways maintained by the Indiana Department of Transportation. These are numbered according to the same convention as U.S. Highways.
Many counties set up this grid as follows: the county is given an east-west division line, dividing the county into northern and southern parts, and a north-south meridian line, dividing it into eastern and western parts. Roads are numbered by taking the distance, in miles, from the appropriate baseline and multiplying it by 100. Thus, a north-south road that is east of the meridian line is county road 100 E; and an east-west road that is north of the division line is county road 475 N.
The state has had difficulty retaining its college graduates, bringing the issue of brain drain to the attention of Governor Mitch Daniels.
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, a Marine Reserve unit, and a small contingent of active and full-time-support reserve personnel.
Indiana is one of thirteen U.S. states that is 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; six counties near Chicago and six near Evansville observe 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, Clark, and Harrison counties near Louisville, Kentucky, and Ohio and Dearborn counties near Cincinnati, Ohio, unofficially observed DST by local custom. Since April 2006 the entire state observes DST. Although DST is supposed to save energy, a 2008 study of billing data before and after the change in 2006 concluded that residential electricity consumption had increased by 1% to 4%, primarily due to extra afternoon cooling.