Located about 40 mi (64 km) south of Indianapolis, on the east fork of the White River, it is the state's 20th-largest city.

It is the principal city of the Columbus, Indiana metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Bartholomew County.

Columbus is the birthplace of former Indiana Governor and former Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence.

[6] In the July 2005 edition of GQ magazine, Columbus was named as one of the "62 Reasons to Love Your Country".

"[9] The land developed as Columbus was bought by General John Tipton and Luke Bonesteel in 1820.

Local history books for years said that the land on which Columbus sits was donated by Tipton.

But in 2003, Historic Columbus Indiana acquired a deed showing that Tipton had sold the land.

The building consists of a one-story bank structure adjacent to a three-story office annex.

The remaining larger portion, designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, was built in 1973.

Eero Saarinen designed the bank building with its glazed hall to be set off against the blank background of its three-story brick annex.

Two steel and glass vestibule connectors lead from the north side of this structure to the annex.

It was announced in February 2011 that the company name would revert to Meritor, Inc.[12] Cummins is by far the region's largest employer, and the Infotech Park in Columbus[13] accounts for a sizable number of research jobs in the city itself.

The late Joseph Irwin Miller (then president and chairman of Cummins) launched the Cummins Foundation, a charitable program that helps subsidize a large number of architectural projects throughout the city by up-and-coming engineers and architects.

Early in the 20th century, Columbus also was home to a number of pioneering car manufacturers, including Reeves, which produced the unusual four-axle Octoauto and the twin rear-axle Sextoauto, both around 1911.

J. Irwin Miller, 2nd CEO and a nephew of a co-founder of Cummins, the Columbus-headquartered diesel engine manufacturer, instituted a program in which the Cummins Foundation paid the architects' fees, provided the client selected a firm from a list compiled by the foundation.

The plan was initiated with public schools and was so successful that the foundation decided to offer such design support to other non-profit and civic organizations.

Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Richard Meier, led to Columbus earning the nickname "Athens on the Prairie.

[20] In 2015, Landmark Columbus was created as a program of Heritage Fund - The Community Foundation of Bartholomew county.

In addition to the Columbus Historic District and Irwin Union Bank, the city has numerous buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including seven National Historic Landmarks of modernist architecture: Bartholomew County Courthouse, Columbus City Hall, First Baptist Church, First Christian Church, Haw Creek Leather Company, Mabel McDowell Elementary School, McEwen-Samuels-Marr House, McKinley School, Miller House, North Christian Church, and The Republic Newspaper Office.

CNHS vs CEHS Indiana Diesels of the Premier Basketball League play their home games at the gymnasium at Ceraland Park, with plans to move to a proposed downtown sports complex in the near future.

[34] Columbus boasts over 700 acres (280 ha) of parks and green space and over 20 miles of People Trails.

ColumBUS provides bus service in the city with five routes operating Monday through Saturday.

The airport handles approximately 40,500 operations per year, with roughly 87% general aviation, 4% air taxi, 8% military and less than 1% commercial service.