The Crossroads of America and the Racing Capital of the World — where the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 2.5-mile oval hosts the Indy 500 (the largest single-day sporting event on earth, 250,000+ spectators) and the Formula 1 US Grand Prix, the Children's Museum is the largest in the world, Kurt Vonnegut grew up here and set Slaughterhouse-Five's opening chapters in the city, and the White River State Park brings a remarkable cluster of free cultural institutions to a downtown that has consistently ranked as one of America's most liveable
Indianapolis (880,000; metro 2.1 million) is the capital and largest city of Indiana — situated at the confluence of the White River and Fall Creek, built on the flat glacially-levelled terrain of the Midwest, and designed on a grid plan by Alexander Ralston (who had also assisted Pierre Charles L'Enfant in designing Washington DC). The city hosts more major annual sporting events per capita than almost any American city: the Indianapolis 500 (May, IMS), the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race (IMS), the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix (IMS), the Big Ten basketball tournament, and frequent NFL and N…
The Miami and Delaware Indigenous peoples occupied the White River valley for centuries before European contact. Indiana was admitted as the 19th state in 1816, and Indianapolis was established as the new state capital in 1821 — an entirely planned city, laid out by Alexander Ralston on a modified version of L'Enfant's Washington DC grid with a central circular plaza (Monument Circle, now home to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, completed 1902). The first Indianapolis 500 was run on May 30, 1911 — Ray Harroun won in a Marmon Wasp at an average speed of 74.6 mph over 500 miles, the longest a…