Indiana County government consists of two agencies, the county council and the commissioners. Many Indiana counties are named after the founding fathers of the United States and the personalities of the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Battle of Tippecanoe; the first leaders of the territory of Indiana and Indiana, as well as of surrounding states such as Michigan and Kentucky; in addition to tribes native American and geographical features. According to the 2000 United States Census, the population of Indiana was 6,045,485, the average population of Indiana's 92 counties is 65,712, with Marion County the most populous (860, 45) and Ohio County (5, 62) the least populated. The average land area is 396 square miles (1,030 km).
The largest county is Allen (657 m2). Me. Under the Indiana Constitution, no county smaller than 400 square miles can be created, nor can any county smaller than this one be further reduced in size. Land area: a measure of the area that provides the size, in square meters, of the land portions of the geographical entities for which the Census Bureau tabulates and disseminates data.
Measures of land area are originally recorded as full square meters (to convert square meters to square kilometers, divide by 1,000,000; to convert square kilometers to square miles, divide by 2,58999; to convert square meters to square miles, divide by 2,589.98). Indiana Business Projections The Research Center indicates that Boone, Hamilton, Hendricks and Johnson Counties will be among the five fastest-growing counties in the state, with growth of more than 40 percent between the 2000 and 2040 censuses. As seen in Table 1, administrative and support services had the highest average job creation in Marion County, while hospitals were the industry leaders in the Circle 7 region. In Indiana, the most common number associated with counties is the state's county code, which is a sequential number based on the alphabetical order of the county.
Many of the last counties were formed after the acquisition and dissolution of the Miami Grand Reserve (which encompasses present-day Howard County and parts of the surrounding counties) between 1834 and 1840. Marion County is the largest county in Indiana, with 860,454 residents and represents 54.1 percent of the Indianapolis metropolitan population. The oldest counties are generally located in the south, near the Ohio River, while the newer ones are in the north, in territory acquired later. All but two counties (Warren and Vermillion) experienced a natural increase and eight counties had positive net migration.
As the fifth largest in the state, Hamilton County accounts for another 13.6 percent of the metropolitan population, with 216,826 people. Suburbanization is still alive and well in the region, as Hamilton and Hendricks Counties have dominated the region's growth so far this decade, both in terms of numbers and percentages. In fact, 21 Indiana counties send more than 500 passengers to Marion County and 15 counties send more than 1,000 (see figure). Joseph (South Bend) and Allen (Fort Wayne) counties will become the third largest county in the state in 2040.
In other words, this three-year growth was greater than that of the entire population in 47 Indiana counties. Most significantly, the twenty largest counties accounted for 80 percent of the state's population increase of 233,000 in the six years since the 2000 census.
