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Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana

township in Marion County, Indiana, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ5248811 ↗
Source-derived summary

Decatur Township is one of the nine townships in Marion County, Indiana, United States, and part of the consolidated city of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 36,951. Located in the southwest corner of the county, the township is home to the Indianapolis International Airport main terminal. It is one of the most rural sections of the county, but has seen many new residential and commercial developments. AmeriPlex, one of the largest industrial parks in Indiana, is in Decatur Township. Through the White River, Decatur and Perry townships share the only water boundary among Marion County's townships.

History

The township was settled in the 1820s by mostly Quakers from South Carolina. They settled along the banks of the White River. West Newton is a small Quaker-settled town inside the township. Many of today's residents can trace their lineages back to these early settlers.

Editorial summary

“Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana” enters the record as township in Marion County, Indiana, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Decatur, Township and Marion can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Decatur, Township and Marion.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Decatur, Township and Marion provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5248811. Authority coordinates are 39.696, -86.262. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana primary sources, Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana archive and Decatur research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.