Muncie is an incorporated city and the seat of Delaware County, Indiana. It is located in East Central Indiana, about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Indianapolis. The United States Census for 2010 reported the city's population was 70,085. It is the principal city of the Muncie metropolitan statistical area, which has a population of 117,671. The Lenape (Delaware) people, who arrived in the area in the 1790s, founded several small villages, including one known as Munsee Town, along the White River. The small trading post, renamed Muncietown, was selected as the Delaware County seat and platted in 1827. Its name was officially shortened to Muncie in 1845 and incorporated as a city in 1865. Muncie developed as a manufacturing and industrial center, especially after the Indiana gas boom of the 1880s. It is home to Ball State University. As a result of the Middletown studies, sociological research that was first conducted in the 1920s, Muncie is said to be one of the most studied United States cities of its size. .
