The Mile Square
Ralston's original plan remains intact downtown: a compact square of streets with four diagonals slicing through it. It is one of the most legible historic town plans in the United States.
Minimalist map poster · United States
A mile-square grid with a circle at its heart and four diagonal avenues reaching outwards, all wrapped in a highway ring.
39.7684° N / 86.1580° W





One city, five moods
Tap a style to see it on the wall. Every style is included in the same $9 price.
Actual pixels · 24 × 36″ HD filePrint-sharp
This is a crop of the real HD file at 100%. The paid download is rendered on our servers at 300 DPI, up to 7,200 × 10,800 pixels, so even the smallest lanes stay crisp on a 24 × 36″ print.
The map
Indianapolis was chosen as Indiana's capital in 1820 for a site close to the centre of the state, and the plan drawn up in 1821 by Alexander Ralston still shapes downtown. Ralston, who had assisted Pierre L'Enfant in Washington, D.C., laid out a square grid a mile on each side, with a circle at its centre and four diagonal avenues running out towards the corners.
The circle is Monument Circle, home to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, and one of the diagonals, Massachusetts Avenue, is now a walkable strip of theatres and restaurants. Beyond the original mile the grid continues across flat land in every direction, interrupted by the White River to the west and the Central Canal running north from downtown.
Interstate 465 loops around most of the city, a near-circular ring that frames the whole metropolitan grid. To the west, in the enclave town of Speedway, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has hosted the Indianapolis 500 since 1911. An Indianapolis map poster at wide scale shows both shapes together: the tight mile square and the long rounded oval of the track.
Ralston's original plan remains intact downtown: a compact square of streets with four diagonals slicing through it. It is one of the most legible historic town plans in the United States.
The round plaza at the exact centre of the plan, with the tall Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in the middle. On the poster it is the point the eye returns to.
The 2.5-mile track sits west of downtown as a large rounded rectangle, with a golf course partly inside it. It adds a bold, unmistakable shape to wider crops of the city.
Make it yours
Add a date, a name or a line of your own, switch style, size or orientation.
Free preview is low-resolution with a watermark. The HD version is 7,200 × 10,800 px, 300 DPI, no watermark.
Why Indianapolis
Indianapolis is a city of neighbourhoods, from Fountain Square to Broad Ripple, and a map lets you centre on the one that matters to you. Race fans often choose a crop that includes the Speedway; others prefer the clean geometry of the Mile Square alone.
Write your own title, add a subtitle such as a race year or a wedding date, and edit the coordinates line. Pick one of five styles, from Classic black & white to Blueprint, which suits the plan's engineering feel. Printed posters ship from partners in more than 30 countries.
Get the Indianapolis poster — $9| Print size | Resolution | Files |
|---|---|---|
| 30 × 40 cm | 3,543 × 4,724 px | PNG · PDF |
| 50 × 70 cm | 5,906 × 8,268 px | PNG · PDF |
| A3 · 29.7 × 42 cm | 3,508 × 4,961 px | PNG · PDF |
| A2 · 42 × 59.4 cm | 4,961 × 7,016 px | PNG · PDF |
| 18 × 24" | 5,400 × 7,200 px | PNG · PDF |
| 24 × 36" | 7,200 × 10,800 px | PNG · PDF |
For comparison, the free preview is 900 px wide, watermarked and meant for screens. The HD files have up to 8× the resolution in each direction and print cleanly at full poster size.
Yes. Drag and zoom the map in the editor — centre it on your neighbourhood, the old town or the whole metro area. The text updates independently.
The HD purchase includes 30×40 cm, 50×70 cm, A3, A2, 18×24″ and 24×36″, each as a 300 DPI PNG and a print-ready PDF.
You can download a free 900 px preview with a watermark. The paid HD files have no watermark and are sharp enough for large prints.
Send the PDF to any local print shop or online printing service and ask for the matching paper size. Matte paper and a thin black or oak frame suit this style best.
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