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State of Indiana

Flag of Indiana Seal of Indiana Nickname(s): The Hoosier State
Official language(s)	English
Capital	Indianapolis
Largest city	Indianapolis
Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude	Ranked 38th 94,321 km² 225 km 435 km 1.5 37°47'N to 41°46'N 84°49'W to 88°4'W
Population  - Total (2000)  - Density	Ranked 14th 6,080,485 65.46/km² (16th)
Elevation  - Highest point  - Mean  - Lowest point	383 m 210 m 98 m
Admission to Union	December 11, 1816 (19th)
Governor	Mitch Daniels (R)
U.S. Senators	Richard Lugar (R) Evan Bayh (D)
Time zone(s)	Eastern: UTC-5/-4 Central: UTC-6/-5 (extreme northwest and southwest)
Abbreviations	IN US-IN
Web site	www.in.gov

This article is about the U.S. state. See also Indiana, Pennsylvania (U.S.) and Indiana, São Paulo (Brazil.)

Indiana, meaning the "Land of the Indians," is a state of the United States of America. Its capital is Indianapolis. The U.S. postal abbreviation for the state is IN.

A resident of Indiana is called a Hoosier (which is also the name used for a student of Indiana University, Bloomington).

The USS Indiana was named in honor of this state.

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 1000CE up to the conventional end of Mississippian dating ("contact with Europeans"). 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.

Law and government

Further information: List of Indiana Governors, Indiana General Assembly, and Indiana Supreme Court

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.

However, Governor Daniels' plans to privatize the Indiana Toll Road to an Australian/Spanish consortium have met with resistance, especially in northern Indiana, the route of the Toll Road. His trips to that part of Indiana to explain his plan have met with thinly-disguised hostility from local residents.

His first official act upon taking up the governorship was to end collective bargaining for Indiana state employees, which is largely in line with Republican union busting, pro-employer/management doctrine.

These acts have not been universally embraced by Hoosiers, even in this overwhelmingly Republican-controlled state. "Ditch Mitch" bumper stickers have started appearing throughout the state.

The state's U.S. senators are B. Evans "Evan" Bayh III (Democrat) and Richard G. Lugar (Republican).

Indiana is considered by many to be one of the most conservative states outside the Deep South. Since it supported Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964, Indiana has not backed a single Democratic presidential candidate. Indiana's polls are the first to close on Election Day, and almost invariably is the first state in the Republican column.

During Presidential campaigns, little attention is paid to Indiana by either Republican or Democrat candidates, though for different reasons. Republicans have generally reliable assurance that Indiana is "theirs" anyway, while Democrats do not appear to want to make the effort to win votes here because of all-but-assured Republican dominance.

During a 2005 speaking engagement, former President Bill Clinton half-jokingly thanked supporters for "allowing" him into such a "red state".

However, half of Indiana's governors in the 20th century were Democrats, though their policies were considerably more right-of-center than Democrats in other parts of the country.

Former Governor and current U.S. Senator Evan Bayh is an all-but-announced candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. His middle-of-the-road record and attention to constituencies have been well-received by Indiana voters. His father was a three-term Senator with a liberal record 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. Until the election of former Governor Evan Bayh to the U.S. Senate, Indiana had an all-Republican Senatorial delegation, composed of the strongly conservative Dan Coats (later appointed Ambassador to Germany) and the relatively moderate Richard Lugar, who is widely respected in both parties for his experience in world affairs. Indiana is nonetheless well-known for its conservatism and loyalty to the Republican Party, especially outside metropolitan areas.

Hoosier conservatism is generally not radical or reactionary, but is traditionalist--rooted in a strong resistance to change, either towards "left" or "right", though more Hoosiers identify themselves as "conservative", and right-wing talk radio programming such as Rush Limbaugh is widely listened to (the first "Rush Room" in the United States was formed in Mishawaka). Gun control, unions, gay marriage (as of 2006, Indiana is attempting to amend the State Constitution to outlaw gay marriage), taxes or workers' rights issues (Indiana is a staunchly pro-management, at-will employment state) are not popular issues among many Hoosiers, which can explain their attachment to the GOP. However, attempts by political pressure groups or even individual state legislators at making the state "more conservative" have met with little success.

Geography

See also: List of Indiana counties, List of Indiana rivers, and Watersheds of Indiana

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 475 mile long Wabash River bisects the state from northeast to southwest and has given Indiana two theme songs, the state song On the Banks of the Wabash as well as The Wabash Cannonball. The White River (a tributary of the Wabash, which is a tributary of the Ohio) zigzags through central Indiana. Indianapolis and Muncie are large cities on this river. Evansville, the third largest city in Indiana, is located on the Ohio River, which forms all of the Indiana-Kentucky border.

Northern Indiana is mostly farmland; however, the northwest corner of the state is part of the greater metropolitan area of Chicago and is therefore more densely populated. Gary, a city on Lake Michigan, is effectively a suburb of Chicago, even though it is in Indiana.

South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart and Goshen have effectively become a single metropolitan area over the past 20 years (spanning two counties).

It is sometimes said that culturally Indiana is demarcated by US Highway 30, which runs on a southeast-northwest axis from Fort Wayne through Merrillville into Illinois. Those living north of US 30 are often closer in attitude to Chicago and Detroit, and some feel a disconnection from the rest of the state. South of US 30 tends to have the more stereotypical Hoosier rural, conservative attitudes, though this of course is in question in the larger cities like Indianapolis, Lafayette and Evansville. Bloomington tends to be much more culturally liberal than the rest of the state.

The Kankakee River, which winds through northern Indiana, serves somewhat as a demarcating line between rural and suburban northwest Indiana.

Southern Indiana is a mixture of farmland and forest. The Hoosier National Forest is a 200,000 acre nature preserve near Bedford. Southern Indiana generally contains more hills and geographic variation than the northern portion.

Economy

The total gross state product in 2003 was $214 billion. Indiana's per capita income, as of 2003, was $28,783.

Indiana is located well 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. The state's nearness to large urban centers, such as Chicago, Illinois, also assures that much dairying, egg production, and specialty horticulture occur. Specialty crops include melons (southern Wabash Valley), tomatoes (concentrated in central Indiana), grapes, and mint (Source: USDA crop profiles). In addition, Indiana is a significant producer of tobacco. It should be remembered that most of the original land was not prairie and had to be cleared of deciduous trees. Many isolated parcels of woodland remain, and much of the southern, hilly portion is heavily forested (a condition which supports a local furniture-making sector in that part of the state).

A high percentage of Indiana's GDP comes from manufacturing. The Calumet region of northwest Indiana is the largest steel producing area in the USA, and this activity also requires that very large amounts of electric power be generated. Indiana's other manufactures include automobiles, electrical equipment, transportation equipment, chemical products, rubber, petroleum and coal products, and factory machinery. In addition, Indiana has the international headquarters of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly as well as the headquarters of Mead Johnson Nutritionals, a division of Bristol-Myers Squibb. 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.

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, and labor accept, 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 for those skills, which often makes location in the state desirable. (Source for basic manufacturing facts in the above two paragraphs is generally McCoy and McNamara, "Manufacturers in Indiana," Purdue University Center for Rural Development, Research Paper 19, July 1998.)

In mining Indiana is probably best known for its decorative limestone from the southern, hilly portion of the state, especially from around Bedford (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 attack of September 11, 2001, 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, and many labor laws that have remained unchanged since the 1800s, emphasizing the supremacy of employer/management. The doctrine of at-will employment, whereby an employer can terminate an employee for any or no reason, is firmly ensconced in Indiana. Unions in Indiana are among the weakest in the U.S. and it is difficult for unions to organize. It has been said that Indiana is a post-industrial state with a pre-Industrial Revolution mindset regarding the rights of workers. With isolated exceptions in university areas such as Bloomington and Lafayette, technology has been slow to catch on in Indiana, in part due to Hoosiers' traditional resistance to change. Most political leaders at the state level continue to emphasize the state's past economic base of manufacturing and farming.

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 largely reduced to reservist operations, though the Department of Defense continues to operate a large financial operation 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 Crane Naval Weapons Center 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.

Demographics

As of 2005, Indiana has an estimated population of 6,271,973, which is an increase of 45,436, or 0.7%, from the prior year and an increase of 191,456, or 3.1%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 159,488 people (that is 451,681 births minus 292,193 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 38,656 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 55,656 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 17,000 people.

As of 2004, the population included about 229,000 foreign-born (3.7%).

Racially, the state is:

• 85.8% White
• 8.4% Black
• 3.5% Hispanic
• 1% Asian
• 0.3% Native American
• 1.2% Mixed race

The five largest ancestries in the state are: German (22.7%), American (12%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.9%), African American (8.4%).

German is the largest ancestry reported in Indiana, with almost one-in-four whites reporting German ancestry in the Census. Persons of American and British ancestry are also present throughout the state, especially in the southern and central parts of the state. Gary and the surrounding Chicago suburbs, along with the city of Indianapolis, have large black populations.

South Bend has a large Polish population and there are a sizeable number of people with Belgian ancestry in Mishawaka. Dyngus Day, the Polish celebration of the end of Lent, takes place on the Monday after Easter and is widely celebrated in South Bend.

A large Hispanic/Latino population has swelled in Elkhart County, particularly the north side of the city of Goshen. This formerly German- and Dutch-dominated area now has a high concentration of Hispanic (particularly Mexican)-oriented businesses and many official signs in the area are bilingual.

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. Meanwhile, population decline has primarily been in a series of counties that geographically form a line between Logansport and Richmond. Most of these counties were at the heart of the Gas Belt. There were also three counties along the Wabash River and the Ohio River that experienced decline, these were Vigo, Knox, and Perry.

Religion

Religiously, Indiana is predominantly Protestant, although there is also a significant Roman Catholic population. The Catholic presence is perhaps better known than its size would imply due to the existence of the University of Notre Dame. Indiana is home to a sizeable and influential proportion of Mennonite and Amish Christians, particularly in Elkhart and LaGrange Counties in the north, and a smaller number in Parke County in the west. The state has the nation's largest population of members of the Protestant "Churches of Christ" denomination.

Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches are strong in the cities, but in rural areas evangelical and fundamentalist churches, such as independent Baptist and Pentecostal churches, tend to dominate. Two conservative denominations, the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Church, have their headquarters in Indianapolis.

The Islamic Society of North America is headquartered just off Interstate 70 in Plainfield, west of Indianapolis.

There are significant numbers of Jews in urban areas, particularly Indianapolis, South Bend, Fort Wayne and Terre Haute.

The current religious affiliations of the people of Indiana are shown below:

• Christian – 82%
  • Baptist – 15%
  • Protestant – 62%
    • Methodist – 10%
    • Lutheran – 6%
    • Church of Christ – 5%
    • Pentecostal – 3%
    • Mennonite/Pietist – 1%
    • Other Protestant – 23%
  • Roman Catholic – 19%
  • Other Christian – 1%
• Other Religions – 1%
• Non-Religious – 17%

Counties and townships

• List of Indiana counties and their etymologies
• List of townships in Indiana

Important cities and towns

Education

Colleges and universities

Professional sports teams

Time zones

Most of Indiana has historically exempted itself from the observation of daylight saving time (DST). Some counties within this area, particularly Floyd, Clark, and Harrison counties near Louisville, Kentucky, and Ohio and Dearborn counties near Cincinnati, Ohio, observe daylight saving time unofficially and illegally by local custom.

In addition, Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, and Jasper counties in the northwest and Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, and Spencer counties in the southwest are in the Central time zone and remain subject to daylight saving time.

The history of this unique arrangement is fairly convoluted. From 1918 until 1961, at which time authority under the various Standard Time Acts was in the Interstate Commerce Commission, the dividing line between Eastern and Central Standard Time was approximately the eastern boundary line of the State of Indiana. In 1961 after hearings, the Interstate Commerce Commission adjusted the boundary line between Eastern and Central so that the line essentially split Indiana down the middle. In 1967, the Governor of Indiana petitioned the United States Department of Transportation to have the entire state of Indiana placed on Central Time. Instead, the time line was fixed in a position where all but 10 counties in western Indiana were placed in the Eastern Time Zone, but dispensation was given to allow a state to exempt an entire time zone bloc within the state from observance of Daylight Saving Time. Technically, during the summer months, this meant most of Indiana was on Eastern Standard Time, but functionally most of the state was on Central Daylight Time. Eastern Standard Time and Central Daylight Time are the same - one could say New York is on Central Daylight Time.

Due to the confusion of anyone not from Indiana, the state passed a bill in 2005 whereby the entire state is to begin observing daylight saving time starting in April 2006. Counties would remain under their current time zones, but the bill also asks the federal Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over time zones, to reconsider whether more counties should switch to the Central zone. The DOT has since announced that the counties of Starke and Pulaski in the northern part of the state; and Knox, Daviess, Martin, Pike, Dubois, and Perry counties in the southern part of the state will join the Central time zone beginning April 2, 2006. (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, docket OST-2005-22114)

Miscellaneous information

• 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 a large number of astronauts, including such notables as "Gus" Grissom and Frank Borman. Many other astronauts, including Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, were graduates of Purdue University in West Lafayette ([1]). Neil Armstrong's Purdue class ring may be the only such object that has ever traveled to the moon and back.

Indiana has made several significant contributions to the fields of entertainment and sport:

• Singer/Farm Aid activist John Mellencamp, born in Seymour and residing near Bloomington.
• Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars (real name Bob Deal), native of Terre Haute.
• Former Van Halen vocalist and current radio personality David Lee Roth, born in Bloomington.
• Soap opera actor Peter Reckell (Days Of Our Lives), native of Elkhart.
• Actor Claude Akins ("Movin' On"), native of Bedford.
• Brady Bunch "mom" Florence Henderson, also of Bedford.
• Actor Ken Kercheval ("Dallas"), of Wolcottville.
• Former (?) Guns N' Roses members Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, both of Lafayette.
• Country singer Janie Fricke, of Fort Wayne.
• The Jackson 5/Michael Jackson entertainment family, of Gary.
• Chicago Bears quarterback Kyle Orton played for Purdue University.
• Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman born in Bloomington.
• St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen born in Evansville.
• Former NY Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly born in Evansville.
• Former Notre Dame and current NFL quarterback Rick Mirer is a native of Goshen.
• R&B singer Vivica A. Fox is a native of South Bend.
• Calbert Cheaney, NBA basketball player and native of Evansville.
• Larry Bird Former NBA player for the Boston Celtics and current President of the Indiana Pacers, Born in French Lick.
• Tony Stewart NASCAR driver and 2005 Nextel Cup Champion born in Columbus.
• Jeff Gordon NASCAR driver and 4 time Nextel Cup Champion native of Pittsboro.
• Abe Lincoln The 16th President of the United States grew up in Spencer County.
• Benjamin Harrison (1833 - 1901) 23rd President of the United States; lived in Indianapolis.
• James Dean Actor; born in Marion.
• David Letterman Host of The Late Show; born in Indianapolis.
• William F. Rasmussen Founder of ESPN graduated from DePauw University.
• General Lew Wallace Civil War Hero and author of the novel Ben-Hur born in Brookville, IN.
• Orville Redenbacher Orville Redenbacher's Popcorn born on a small corn plantation in Indiana.
• Shannon Hoon, late singer for Blind Melon, born in Lafayette.
• Kurt Vonnegut, author of Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5 and many others, born in Indianapolis.

Natural resources

There are 24 Indiana state parks, nine man-made reservoirs, and hundreds of lakes in the state.

External links

Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews

• Indiana government home page

• Indiana state emblems

• Indiana Employment Data
• U.S. Census Bureau
• Indiana Newspapers
• Indiana Computer Technology News

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