US Map / Cities / Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne Map

Fort Wayne grew at the portage where the St. Marys and St. Joseph rivers meet to form the Maumee — the shortest carry between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi system.

Where is Fort Wayne?

Fort Wayne is in northeastern Indiana, about 120 miles northeast of Indianapolis, roughly 95 miles southwest of Toledo, and some 160 miles east of Chicago. Detroit is about 160 miles to the northeast. The Ohio state line is 20 miles east and the Michigan line about 45 miles north, so the city serves a trading area that crosses into both.

Fort Wayne at a glance

Fort Wayne in Indiana

Fort Wayne is the seat of Allen County, the largest county by area in Indiana and one of 92 on the Indiana county map. It is the state's second-largest city after Indianapolis, and the two are the only Indiana entries in the national top 100. Indiana spent decades as an awkward case for clocks; the northeast, including Fort Wayne, now keeps Eastern Time with daylight saving, while a handful of counties near Chicago and Evansville use Central. The Indiana state page lays out the division.

Three rivers and a continental portage

The St. Joseph flows in from the north and the St. Marys from the south; where they meet, the Maumee begins and runs northeast to Lake Erie at Toledo. A few miles southwest, the Little River drains the other way, into the Wabash and then the Ohio and the Mississippi. The gap between the two systems here is short and nearly level — the Wabash-Erie portage — and controlling it is why the French, the British and then the United States each built a fort on this spot. The Wabash and Erie Canal was later cut through the same low ground. The surrounding country is flat glacial till, part of the old Black Swamp margin, and drains slowly.

Cities near Fort Wayne

Nearby cities are Indianapolis, Toledo, Chicago, Detroit and Columbus. The East North Central division page covers the belt of states they share.