Indiana county map

How Indiana’s counties are laid out

Indiana packs 92 counties into 36,420 square miles, an average of under 400 square miles each — the counties were deliberately made small enough that a farmer could ride to the county seat and back in a day. The oldest, Knox County at Vincennes on the Wabash, was organised in 1790 under the Northwest Territory and once covered most of the Midwest. Counties were added from the south northward as the Miami and Potawatomi lands were ceded; the last block, in the north-central part of the state, was organised in the late 1830s.

The result is a neat grid. Away from the Ohio and Wabash rivers most county lines are straight surveyed lines, and the ninety-two seats are spaced evenly across the state. Many county names honour Revolutionary War figures (Warren, Wayne, Putnam, Greene, Steuben, Pulaski, Kosciusko, DeKalb, LaGrange) and several honour Indiana’s own territorial and early state leaders (Harrison, Posey, Jennings, Hendricks, Noble, Tipton).

Indiana is a split time-zone state. Twelve counties are on Central Time: Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, Porter and Starke in the north-west near Chicago, and Gibson, Perry, Posey, Spencer, Vanderburgh and Warrick in the south-west around Evansville. The other 80 counties, including Marion County and Indianapolis, use Eastern Time. The whole state has observed daylight saving time only since 2006.

All 92 counties of Indiana

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Allen County, seat Fort Wayne, about 660 square miles in the north-east where the St. Joseph and St. Marys rivers join to form the Maumee.
• Smallest by area: Ohio County, seat Rising Sun, on the Ohio River in the south-east corner, about 87 square miles — one of the smallest counties in the country. Its neighbour Switzerland County (Vevay) was settled by Swiss vine-growers in 1802.
• Most populous: Marion County, consolidated with Indianapolis, about 977,000 people in 2020. Lake County (Gary and Hammond, seat Crown Point) is second with about 499,000, and Allen County third. Hamilton County, north of Indianapolis, is the fastest-growing.
• Least populous: Ohio County again, with fewer than 6,000 people, the only Indiana county under 8,000. Union, Warren and Benton counties are also very small.
• Oldest and newest: Knox County (1790) is the oldest, followed by Clark (1801) and Dearborn (1803). Newton County, re-created in 1859 from Jasper, is the newest. Indianapolis and Marion County merged as “Unigov” in 1970, though four towns inside the county (Beech Grove, Lawrence, Southport and Speedway) kept their own governments. Indiana has no independent cities.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in to see county lines. Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties touch Lake Michigan in the north-west; St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaGrange and Steuben form the northern tier against Michigan. The Wabash River makes a curving western border from Vermillion County south to Posey County, and Posey’s southern tip, where the Wabash meets the Ohio, is the lowest point in the state at about 320 feet. Along the Ohio the counties are small and hilly — Crawford, Perry, Harrison, Floyd — and Harrison County’s seat Corydon was the first state capital until 1825. Monroe County holds Indiana University at Bloomington, Tippecanoe County holds Purdue at West Lafayette, and Vanderburgh County holds Evansville, the largest city in the Central Time part of the state.

Related maps

• Indiana map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Indiana map and printable Indiana map.
• Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city, in Marion County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois.
• East North Central states · the Midwest · Great Lakes region · Eastern and Central time zones.
• Geography: Ohio River, Great Lakes, US rivers.
• All US county maps.