Indianapolis, Indiana

Where Indianapolis is

Indianapolis is at 39.77°N, 86.16°W, within a few miles of the geographic center of Indiana. The West Fork of the White River flows south through the west side of the city; Fall Creek joins it near downtown. The site is flat glacial till about 715 ft above sea level. Since the 1970 Unigov consolidation the city and Marion County are a single government, which is why the city's population figure is so much larger than it was before. Four interstates, 65, 69, 70 and 74, meet here, the origin of the nickname Crossroads of America.

Indiana is split between time zones. Indianapolis and most of the state use Eastern Time; six counties near Chicago and six near Evansville use Central Time.

How it became the capital

Vincennes on the Wabash was the capital of Indiana Territory, and Corydon in the south held the government from 1813 through statehood in 1816. The 1816 constitution required a central site, and in 1820 commissioners picked an almost uninhabited spot on the White River. Alexander Ralston, who had helped survey Washington, D.C., laid out the Mile Square with diagonal avenues radiating from a central circle. The legislature moved in January 1825.

Population

Indianapolis had 887,642 residents in 2020, the largest city in Indiana and the 16th-largest in the United States. Fort Wayne, at about 264,000, is second. The 11-county Indianapolis metropolitan area has about 2.1 million people, nearly a third of Indiana's 6,785,528.

The capitol

The Indiana Statehouse was designed by Edwin May and completed in 1888 after his death under Adolph Scherrer. It is built of Indiana limestone in a Renaissance Revival style with a central dome 234 ft high, and it still houses all three branches of state government. The first purpose-built capitol on the site, a Greek Revival building of 1835, was torn down because it was structurally unsound.

Distances to other cities

Columbus, Ohio, is about 175 miles east along Interstate 70.

Related maps

• Indiana map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
• Indianapolis city map — the city page with nearby cities and distances.
• Indiana county map · blank Indiana map · printable Indiana map.
• All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
• Midwest region · East North Central division · Eastern Time Zone.