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The Nine-County Region is an informal name to an area comprised of (not surprisingly) nine counties in the center of the US state of Indiana. More specifically, Nine-County Region describes the general metropolitan area of Indianapolis, the state capitol. It includes the entirety of Marion, southern portions of Boone, Hamilton, and Madison, an eastern portion of Hendricks, a western portion of Hancock, and northern portions of Morgan, Johnson, and Shelby counties. Indiana towns and cities within the Nine-County Area include Indianapolis, Beech Grove, Speedway, Lawrence, and Southport (all part of Unigov) in Marion county; Zionsville in Boone County; Carmel, Fishers and Noblesville in Hamilton county; Anderson in Madison county; Greenfield in Hancock county; Shelbyville in Shelby county, Greenwood in Johnson county; Plainfield in Morgan county; and Clermont and Brownsburg in Hendricks county.
Two of the northern counties (Boone and Hamilton) are more tightly tied to Indianapolis than are the rest. Municipalities in the three eastern counties of the Nine-County Region are the least tightly-connected to Indianapolis.
Currently, the region is struggling to determine whether it will remain administratively fragmented along county and municipal borders or whether at least some part of it will coalesce into an integrated regional plan. Some attempts have been made to integrate transportation, but these have mostly been towards the north. There is de facto integration of some water services from the fact that the same private corporation happens to serve Indianapolis and some outlying municipal water needs.
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