Indiana has some vast differences in feeling between northern, central, and southern. In the south you have hills and rivers, and culturally it feels like it should belong to the Southern region (i.e. with Kentucky and Tennessee). Central Indiana is definitely Corn Belt Midwestern, and Northern Indiana (i.e. South Bend and Gary) feels very industrial and Michigan-ish. The idea of defining regions by topographical features is a good one, but I think cultural boundaries are more apt sometimes. For instance, Iowa has a lot more in common with Central Indiana than Southern Indiana--since Southern Indiana was settled by immigration from Kentucky while Central Indiana received its population from Ohio. If you want to make generalizations across regions, maybe we should consider more where people came from rather than where they ended up. (I lived in California for a while and found a great deal of Los Angeles made up of people originally from New York City--if it weren't for the dissimilar weather patterns the cultures might be a lot closer than they are now.) Julia Moore Indianapolis Art Center [log in to unmask]