Indiana

I

Introduction

Indiana, state in the north central United States, in the Midwest. Indiana is one of the leading industrial and agricultural states in the Union. Manufacturing is Indiana’s single most important economic activity, but agriculture remains a principal activity throughout much of the state. The state motto, the Crossroads of America, reflects the importance of Indiana in the commercial activities of the country, for numerous transportation routes pass through the state. Indianapolis, the state’s capital and largest city, is itself a crossroads, situated at the center of the state with most transportation routes radiating from it.

Indiana entered the Union on December 11, 1816, as the 19th state. Indiana was originally a heavily forested wilderness area. With the beginning of large-scale settlement early in the 19th century, most of the forests were soon cleared for farmland, and Indiana acquired some of the characteristics of other sections of the Midwest. The flat or gently rolling central part of the state developed as an area of prosperous farms specializing in corn and grain-fed livestock. All but the southern and southeastern part of the state is part of the so-called Corn Belt that stretches from Ohio to eastern Nebraska. Southern Indiana is largely an area of hills, tracts of forest land, small farms, and small rural communities. The northern lowlands, from the Calumet region in the northwest to Fort Wayne in the east, includes—in addition to farmland—one of the greatest concentrations of industry in the United States. Other industrial and commercial centers are found in central and southern Indiana.

The state’s nickname is the Hoosier State, and the people of Indiana are called Hoosiers. These two names are among the most widely known of all state nicknames, but their origin remains disputed. Among the many explanations is that of Jacob Piatt Dunn. He traced the word back to “hoozer,” a dialect word from the Cumberland district of northwestern England that meant any unusually large feature, such as a hill. It eventually came to mean a hill dweller, and as such, was introduced in hilly southern Indiana, the earliest settled part of the state. Another explanation holds that the term comes from the many Indiana residents hired by contractor Sam Hoosier, who became known as Hoosiers. Still others believe the word is a corruption of pioneer question “Who’s here?” The word Indiana simply means “land of the Indians,” referring to the region’s many Native American inhabitants. The term was coined in the 1760s and first applied to a private tract of land in Pennsylvania. In 1800 it was applied to the Indiana Territory when the United States Congress created it out of the Northwest Territory.

II

Physical Geography

Indiana ranks 38th among the states in size, with a total area of 94,322 sq km (36,418 sq mi), including 818 sq km (316 sq mi) of inland water and 609 sq km (235 sq mi) of Lake Michigan over which it has jurisdiction. Indiana is roughly rectangular in shape, and the state has a maximum dimension north to south of 459 km (285 mi) and a maximum east to west dimension of 285 km (177 mi). The state is bordered on the north by Lake Michigan and the state of Michigan, on the east by Ohio, and on the west by Illinois. The Ohio River separates Indiana from Kentucky on the southern border.

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A

Natural Regions

Indiana includes parts of two natural regions, or physiographic provinces, of the United States, the Central Lowland and the Interior Low Plateau. Both regions form part of a larger natural region, the Interior Plains. Indiana lies mainly between 150 and 300 m (500 and 1,000 ft) above sea level and has an average elevation of about 210 m (700 ft). The highest point, in Wayne County near the Ohio state line, is only 383 m (1,257 ft) above sea level.

The Central Lowland, in Indiana, is a generally flat area that covers the northern and central portions of the state. Much of its appearance is a result of glacial action that occurred during the Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. During that period several great ice sheets advanced from the north and retreated across Indiana. Early ice sheets covered all of Indiana except a hilly irregular wedge roughly south of a line connecting the cities of Evansville, Bloomington, and New Albany. Later ice sheets covered only the northern and central sections of the Central Lowland. The ice sheets left a deep layer of glacial drift that has weathered into soils made up of sand and clays intermingled with gravel. This type of glacial drift is termed till, or ground moraines.

Occasional areas of boulders and rough stones were deposited in terminal or lateral moraines, now rising in low, deeply eroded hills marking the edges of the glacier’s path. As the glaciers melted, they left deposits of sand and gravel washed out by meltwater streams. These deposits form a natural conduit for groundwater and are the source of well water in large parts of the state.

The most recently glaciated areas, limited to northern Indiana, are covered with large areas of infertile sandy deposits and numerous swamps and marshes. When drained, the swamps and marshes provide fertile muck soils. Low sandy ridges and hills of glacial drift are common in this section of the Central Lowland. Central Indiana, which has a generally less varied relief, includes the flattest areas in the state and also some of the most fertile soils. The very flat and fertile lands of west-central Indiana form an extension of the Grand Prairie area in Illinois. Only in some east-central areas do concentric bands of low sandy ridges add greater diversity of relief. Glaciated areas in southern Indiana, covered very early in the Ice Age, have been exposed longer to the forces of erosion than have the areas farther north. As a result, the landscape in even the glaciated areas of southern Indiana is characterized by numerous rolling hills and valleys.

The Interior Low Plateau, in southern Indiana, is a hilly area that was never glaciated by the ice sheets. Long subjected to erosion, it is an area of sharp ridges, deep gorges and scenic waterfalls. There are also numerous caves and sinkholes, which have been formed in places where water action has dissolved the underlying limestone of the plateau. Wyandotte Cave and Marengo Cave, about 50 km (about 30 m) west of New Albany, are two of the largest caves. Limestone bedrock exposed in the unglaciated areas provides the state with a major building stone, Indiana limestone. One of the world’s leading exposures of Devonian Period limestone fossils is in the Falls of the Ohio State Park in New Albany.

B

Rivers and Lakes

Most of Indiana’s rivers flow southward and westward and form part of the Mississippi River system. In addition, there are several small rivers that flow northward to Lake Michigan or eastward, through Ohio, to Lake Erie. The watershed, or dividing line, in Northern Indiana between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes drainage basin is generally low, swampy, and poorly defined.

The Ohio River, a major tributary of the Mississippi River, forms a navigable route along the entire length of the Indiana-Kentucky state line. The Ohio’s major tributary in Indiana is the Wabash River. The Wabash, 824 km (512 mi) in length, flows generally westward across north central Indiana and then turns southward to form a lengthy section of the Indiana-Illinois state line. In Indiana the principal tributaries of the Wabash are the Tippecanoe River in the north, and the East Fork and the West Fork of the White River, which drain large areas of the southern and south central portions of Indiana. Indianapolis, the capital, is located on the West Fork of the White River.

The major river in northwestern Indiana is the Kankakee River. The Kankakee rises near South Bend and flows westward across Indiana into Illinois, where it joins the Des Plaines River to form the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi. In northeastern Indiana the Maumee River, which drains to Lake Erie is formed at Fort Wayne by the junction of the Saint Marys and Saint Joseph rivers. There is another Saint Joseph River, which loops through South Bend in northern Indiana to enter Lake Michigan in Michigan.

There are about 1,000 small natural lakes in Indiana, chiefly in the northern part of the state. The largest is Lake Wawasee, which covers almost 13 sq km (5 sq mi). In the central part of the state there are several lakes that were created behind dams on a number of smaller streams. They include Monroe Lake, near Bloomington; Geist and Eagle Creek reservoirs, northeast and northwest of Indianapolis; and Mississinewa and Huntington reservoirs, north of Marion.

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