Indiana, IN
The State of
Indiana is the 19th U.S. state and is located in
the midwestern region of the United States of
America. With about 6.3 million residents, it is
ranked 14th in population and 17th in population
density.
Indiana is ranked
38th in land area. Indiana is a diverse state
with a few large urban areas and a number of
smaller industrial cities.
It is known for
the Indianapolis 500 automobile race, held
annually over the Memorial Day weekend, and a
strong basketball tradition, often called
Hoosier Hysteria. Residents of Indiana are
called Hoosiers.
There are several
ideas about the origin of the name. Linguists
have traced it to England, where in one dialect
it meant "farmer."
Others have traced
it to the Indiana workers who crossed the Ohio
River to work for Sam Hoosier during
construction of the Louisville and Portland
Canal; these workers were known as "Hoosier's
Men."
Another story told
to Indiana youths is that in the early 1800s,
bar fights would break out in Indiana saloons,
with many a man losing an ear. Someone would
pick it up and ask "Whose ear?", which somehow
evolved into Hoosier.
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 near
Evansville.
Geography
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 northern boundary of
the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois was
originally defined to be a latitudinal line
drawn through the southernmost tip of Lake
Michigan.
Since such a line
would not provide Indiana with usable frontage
on the lake, its northern border was shifted ten
miles (16 km) north.
The northern
borders of Ohio and Illinois were also shifted
from this original plan.
This article is
licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation
License. It uses
material from the
Wikipedia article "Indiana".