Regions
Cities
Towns
Other destinations
National Parks
State Parks
Understand
Get in
Indianapolis International Airport is the major airport in the state with flights to many cities around the country. Fort Wayne, Evansville and South Bend offer flights to nearby hub cities. Air service is also available from nearby airports in Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville.
Numerous interstate highways enter and leave the state. Interstates 80 and 90 form the Indiana Toll Road in northern Indiana, linking Gary, South Bend and Ohio. Interstate 94 hugs most of Lake Michigan from Illinois to Michigan. Interstate 65 is the major north-south route from Gary south to Indianapolis then entering Kentucky at Louisville. Interstate 70 is the busiest east-west route linking Illinois (at Terre Haute) with Ohio (at Richmond), passing through Indianapolis midway. Interstate 74 does the same thing, except it enters near Danville, Illinois and leaves near Cincinnati. Interstate 64 crosses southern Indiana from Illinois (25 miles northwest of Evansville) to New Albany. Interstate 69 runs from northeast Indiana, out of Michigan, through Fort Wayne to Indianapolis, where it ends (there are plans to extend it to Evansville and eventually to Texas). Interstate 275 (the Cincinnati bypass) briefly enters Indiana for about five miles. US 41 extends from Gary to Evansville and is the major north-south route through western Indiana.
Get around
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Stay safe
Largely rural, Indiana has a fairly low crime rate per capita. In 2003 (the latest year for which data is available) it ranked 30th in crimes per 100,000 population. Large urban areas are exceptions like the former steel town Gary and the outlying Chicago area in the Northwest and certain segments of Indianapolis.
While outside of Tornado Alley, Indiana has a fairly high occurrence of tornados. You might want to check the Tornado safety page if you are visiting Indiana.
Get out
Indiana is very centralized and is therefore fairly close to several popular destinations.
Chicago is just across the state line from northwestern Indiana.
Louisville and Cincinnati are both near the state line in southeastern Indiana.
St. Louis, Nashville, Milwaukee and Detroit are all a 2-3 hour drive from the state line.
The State of Indiana (IPA: /ˌɪn.diˈɒ.nə/) is the 19th U.S. state and is located in the midwestern region of the United States of America. With about 6.3 million residents, it is ranked 15th in population and 17th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th 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.
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.
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 would not provide Indiana with usable frontage on the lake, its northern border was shifted ten miles 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 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 include:
- George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes
- Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore near Michigan City
- Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City
- Hoosier National Forest in Bedford
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 Region". They 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 located within the area include Anderson, Bloomington, Carmel, Columbus, Crawfordsville, Danville, Fishers, Lafayette, Lebanon, Muncie, Richmond, and Terre Haute.
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.
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 and generally contains more hills and geographic variation than the northern portion, such as the "Knobs," a series of 1,000 ft. hills that run parallel to the Ohio River in south-central Indiana. The limestone geology of Southern Indiana has created numerous caves and one of the largest limestone quarry regions in the USA.
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.
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.
Pioneer Era
On June 29, 1816, Indiana adopted a constitution, and on December 11, 1816, became the 19th State to join the Union.
Indiana filled up from the Ohio River north. Emigration, 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 is 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 was not 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.
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. 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.
Indiana also hosts a large Jewish community.
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.
Important cities and towns
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, 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, Merrillville, Schererville, Munster, Valparaiso, Portage, Chesterton, and St. John.
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 is not 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 would not 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.
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.
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.
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 number of intersecting highways in and around Indianapolis earned it the nickname as 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 400 miles 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.
Time zones
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
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:
- John Andretti, racecar driver
- George Ball, industrialist
- Albert J. Beveridge, politician and historian
- Larry Bird, basketball player, coach
- Jason Baker, NFL Punter
- Claude Bowers, politician and historian
- Avery Brooks, Actor
- Hoagland Carmichael , composer
- 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
- Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, singer/songwriter
- Edward Eggleston, author
- Vivica A. Fox, actress
- Jared Fogle, Subway Sandwich Spokesperson
- Brendan Fraser, actor
- Jim Gaffigan, comedian
- Lillian Gilbreth, home economist
- Ron Glass, Actor
- Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver
- Art Green, painter
- Bob Griese, Football Player
- 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 & philanthropist
- 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
- Brad Miller, NBA basketball player
- Sherman Minton, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
- Ryan Newman, NASCAR Driver
- Meredith Nicholson, novelist
- Greg Oden, basketball player
- Robert Dale Owen, utopian
- Jane Pauley, anchor and journalist
- Cole Porter , song writer
- Ernie Pyle, journalist
- Dan Quayle, Forty-fourth U.S. Vice-President
- George Rapp, Utopian
- Orville Redenbacher, farming (popcorn)
- James Whitcomb Riley, poet
- Oscar Robertson, basketball player
- Glenn Robinson, former NBA basketball player
- Knute Rockne, football coach
- Scott Rolen, baseball player
- Axl Rose, singer/musician
- Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken
- Jean Shepherd, American raconteur, media personality, writer, and actor
- Red Skelton, comedian
- Chris Smith, PGA golfer
- Chase Stevens, TNA professional wrestler
- Tony Stewart, NASCAR driver
- Izzy Stradlin, guitarist/musician
- Gene Stratton-Porter, novelist
- Booth Tarkington , novelist
- Steve Tesich, writer
- Maurice Thompson, novelist
- Kurt Vonnegut, writer
- Lew Wallace, Civil War general, statesman, author
- Deniece Williams, singer/songwriter
- Matt Williams, producer of The Cosby Show, Home Improvement, and Roseanne
- Wendell Willkie, politician
- John Wooden, basketball coach
- Fuzzy Zoeller, PGA golfer
- Indiana Writer's Project. Indiana: A Guide To The Hoosier State: American Guide Series (1937), famous WPA Guide to every location; strong on history, architecture and culture; reprinted 1973
- Donald Francis Carmony. Indiana, 1816 to 1850: The Pioneer Era (1998)
- James H. Madison. The Indiana Way: A State History (1990)
- Mark Skertic and John J. Watkins. A Native's Guide to Northwest Indiana (2003)
- Robert M. Taylor, ed. The State of Indiana History 2000: Papers Presented at the Indiana Historical Society's Grand Opening (2001)
- Robert M. Taylor, ed. Indiana: A New Historical Guide (1990), highly detailed guide to citiies and recent history
Government
- IN.Gov - The Official website of the State of Indiana
- IndyGov.Org - Official Indianapolis city government website
- Indiana Historical Society
- Anything Indiana Directory
- Indiana State Emblems
- USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Indiana
- Indiana State Facts from USDA
- Official Indiana state tourism website
- Road to Indiana Statehood
- Indiana Daily Newspapers
- Indiana Economic Digest - Digest of Indiana business stories
- Inside Indiana Business - Statewide business daily
- Indianapolis Star - Central Indiana news
- The Tribune-Star - West-Central Indiana news
- The Herald-Times - South-Central Indiana news
- [http://www.courierpress.com/ Evan
