Indiana is the 19th U.S. state and is located in the Midwest region of the United States of America. With about 6.3 million residents, it is ranked 15th in population and 17th in population density. It is 38th in land area.
Indiana is a diverse state with five large urban areas and a number of smaller industrial cities. It is known for the Indianapolis 500 American 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.
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.
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.
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.
