Indiana (State)

State of Indiana
Coordinates 39°56’NB, 86°13’WL
General
Surface 94.321 km²
(1,5% water)
Residents 6.516.922
(70,2 inhabitants/km²)
Capital city Indianapolis
Politics
Governor Eric Holcomb (R)
Other
Time zone −5 / −6
Joined 11 December 1816
Nickname Hoosier State
ISO 3166-2 US-IN
Website in.gov

Indiana is one of the states of the United States, located in the Great Lakes region. The default abbreviation is IN. Indiana was the 19th state to join the United States. The surface of the state is 94,321 km² and there are 6,237,569 inhabitants. The largest city and capital is Indianapolis. The state is named after the English name of its original inhabitants – the name dates back to at least the 1760s and was first used by the United States Congress.

Before the colonization period, Indiana was inhabited by all kinds of indigenous peoples. Angel Mounds National Historic Site is one of the best preserved pottery archaeological sites in the United States and can be found in southwestern Indiana near Evansville.

The state’s nickname is Hoosier State, and its residents have often been referred to as Hoosiers since the 1830s. There are various theories about the origin of this nickname.

Geography and Climate

According to JIBIN123.COM, the state of Indiana covers 94,321 km², of which 1.5% is water. The state is mostly in the Eastern time zone, except the Northwest, which belongs to the Central time zone.

Indiana is bordered by Michigan to the north, Illinois to the west , Ohio to the east, and Kentucky to the south. It is located on Lake Michigan. The entire southern border is formed by the Ohio River, part of the western border by the Wabash River, which flows into it.

The state is quite flat; the highest point is only 383 m above sea level: Hoosier Hill. Because of this, it usually blows very hard in Indiana, in addition, about 20 tornadoes occur annually.

Indiana is characterized by a very fluctuating climate. It generally has a humid continental climate, with the exception of the extreme south where a humid subtropical climate prevails.

History

Shawnee chief Tecumseh loses his temper during negotiations with US Governor William Henry Harrison in 1810. Tecumseh demanded the invalidation of the Treaty of Fort Waine, which regulated the sale of large tracts of Native American land.

Before Europeans colonized present-day Indiana, the area was populated by several Native American tribes.

The first European explorer in the area was the Frenchman Sieur de la Salle, who reached what is today South Bend in 1679. French traders entered the area from Canada to trade hides with the Indians for weapons, alcohol and blankets. The first French trading post was founded in 1702. Around 1750, the British also arrived in the area, who contested the trade in skins with the French. In the armed conflicts between the two colonial powers, the Indians usually sided with the French. However, the British convincingly won the French and Indian War (1754-1762), in which all the area east of the Mississippiunder which present-day Indiana became British.

Two decades later, however, the British were expelled during the American Revolutionary War (1777-1783). Although most of the fighting took place in the Thirteen Colonies on the east coast, the British territory west of the Appalachians was also important, as the British could continue to threaten the American revolutionaries from here. American commander George Rogers Clark invaded the area in 1779 to isolate and defeat British forces. After the war, the area south of the Great Lakes was assigned to the Americans and renamed the Northwest Territory.

After Ohio was formally declared a state in 1803, the remainder of the Northwest Territory was renamed Indiana Territory. In addition, in 1805 the northernmost part was split off under the name Michigan Territory. Indiana Territory’s first governor, later president William Henry Harrison, bought large tracts of land from the Native Americans. This freed up more area for colonization and resulted in thousands of new settlers from the east coming to live in the area every year. The settlers settled mainly around the largest rivers (Mississippi, Ohio and Wabash) and the Great Lakes coast. The interior remained largely in the hands of the Indians.

Although slavery was initially not allowed in the area, Harrison lifted the ban, believing it would benefit the area’s economic development. He opposed the humanistic Quakers. Opponents of slavery managed to split off the eastern part of the area (present-day Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota and part of Michigan) in 1809 under the name Illinois Territory. In the same year, Indiana Territory also gained its own elected parliament, which, against the governor’s will, reintroduced the ban on slavery.

Shawnee anger over the sale of large tracts of land led to growing tensions between the Shawnee and the American settlers. Tenskwatawa, a leader considered a prophet by the Shawnee, managed to gain many followers with inflammatory language against the Americans. His brother Tecumseh tried to unite all Native American tribes in their struggle against the advancing settlers. In 1811, tensions led to the Battle of Tippecanoe, in which Harrison’s forces defeated the Shawnee of Tenskwatawa. During the War of 1812between the United States and the British, Tecumseh sided with the British. The Indian Rebellion ended with Tecumseh’s death at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813.

Although Indiana’s population was just over 50,000, a movement began around 1810 to make the area an official state. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Jonathan Jennings, the Indiana Territory delegate to Congress, Indiana formally became the 19th state of the United States on December 11, 1816. During the American Civil War, the state sided with the Union.

Demography and Economics

Indiana had a population of 6,080,485 (64 per km²), of which about 65% of the population lives in an urban area.

The largest city in Indiana is capital Indianapolis. Other cities include Fort Wayne, South Bend and Evansville. Gary, in the far northwest, is attached to Chicago in the state of Illinois.

After Pennsylvania and Ohio, most of the Amish live in Indiana. In 2020, their number was 59,305.

The gross product of the state in 2001 was 190 billion dollars.

Administrative division

According to COUNTRYAAH, Indiana is divided into 92 counties.

County Inhabitants
1 July, 2007
County Seat Inhabitants
1 July, 2007
Adams 33.644 Decatur 9492
Allen 349.488 Fort Wayne 251.247
Bartholomew 74.750 Columbus 39.817
Benton 8810 Fowler 2211
Blackford 13.189 Hartford City 6347
Boone 54.137 Lebanon 15.259
Brown 14.670 Nashville 774
Carroll 19.987 Delphi 2889
Cass 39.193 Logansport 18.743
Clark 105.035 Jeffersonville 29.627
Clay 26.648 Brazil 8194
Clinton 33.795 Frankfort 16.314
Crawford 10.782 English 669
Daviess 30.035 Washington 11.367
Dearborn 49.759 Lawrenceburg 4840
Decatur 24.959 Greensburg 10.598
DeKalb 41.796 Auburn 12.837
Delaware 115.419 Muncie 65.410
Dubois 41.225 Jasper 13.936
Elkhart 197.942 Goshen 31.893
Fayette 24.273 Connersville 13.955
Floyd 73.064 New Albany 37.033
Fountain 17.143 Covington 2442
Franklin 23.234 Brookville 2921
Fulton 20.308 Rochester 6447
Gibson 32.754 Princeton 8470
Grant 68.847 Marion 30.363
Greene 32.692 Bloomfield 2486
Hamilton 261.661 Noblesville 41.561
Hancock 66.305 Greenfield 18.401
Harrison 36.810 Corydon 2751
Hendricks 134.558 Danville 8025
Henry 47.181 New Castle 18.347
Howard 83.776 Kokomo 45.902
Huntington 37.743 Huntington 16.633
Jackson 42.184 Brownstown 2999
Jasper 32.275 Rensselaer 6248
Jay 21.514 Portland 6190
Jefferson 32.704 Madison 12.579
Jennings 28.106 Vernon 318
Johnson 135.951 Franklin 22.672
Knox 37.949 Vincennes 17.950
Kosciusko 76.115 Warsaw 13.396
LaGrange 37.032 Lagrange 2935
Lake 492.104 Crown Point 23.909
LaPorte 109.787 LaPorte 21.093
Lawrence 46.033 Bedford 13.489
Madison 131.312 Anderson 57.311
Marion 876.804 Indianapolis 795.458
Marshall 46.698 Plymouth 10.985
Martin 10.058 Shoals 791
Miami 36.641 Peru 12.484
Monroe 128.643 Bloomington 72.254
Montgomery 37.881 Crawfordsville 15.066
Morgan 69.874 Martinsville 11.714
Newton 14.014 Kentland 1679
Noble 47.526 Albion 2323
Ohio 5772 Rising Sun 2348
Orange 19.607 Paoli 3896
Owen 22.398 Spencer 2481
Parke 17.169 Rockville 2621
Perry 18.916 Tell City 7552
Pike 12.605 Petersburg 2457
Porter 160.578 Valparaiso 29.951
Posey 26.262 Mount Vernon 7047
Pulaski 13.778 Winamac 2501
Putnam 37.014 Greencastle 10.014
Randolph 25.859 Winchester 4616
Ripley 27.350 Versailles 1711
Rush 17.494 Rushville 6146
St. Joseph 266.088 South Bend 104.069
Scott 23.679 Scottsburg 5952
Shelby 44.063 Shelbyville 18.414
Spencer 44.063 Rockport 2068
Starke 23.542 Knox 3795
Steuben 33.450 Angola 7903
Sullivan 21.366 Sullivan 4480
Switzerland 9684 Vevay 1622
Tippecanoe 163.364 Lafayette 63.679
Tipton 16.069 Tipton 5063
Union 7203 Liberty 1928
Vanderburgh 174.425 Evansville 116.253
Vermillion 16.417 Newport 549
Vigo 104.915 Terre Haute 58.932
Wabash 32.918 Wabash 10.868
Warren 8482 Williamsport 1842
Warrick 57.090 Boonville 6726
Washington 27.920 Salem 6499
Wayne 68.260 Richmond 36.993
Wells 27.927 Bluffton 9359
White 23.819 Monticello 5294
Whitley 32.655 Columbia City 8202

Politics

The executive branch of the state is headed by a governor, who is directly elected by the voters in the state. Since January 2017, Eric Holcomb of the Republican Party has been the governor of Indiana. He succeeded his party colleague Mike Pence, who was elected Vice President of the United States in 2016.

The legislature is made up of the Indiana House of Representatives (Indiana House of Representatives) with 100 members and the Indiana Senate (Indiana Senate) with 50 members. Republicans have held the Senate for more than twenty years; the House changed majority more often, but since the 2010 elections has also continuously had a Republican majority. For several years now, this party has even had a two-thirds majority in both chambers.

Both governor and legislature are based in the Indiana Statehouse.

Flag of Indiana