Indianola is a city in Warren County, Iowa, United States, located 14 miles (23 km) south of downtown Des Moines.

[5] Indianola is home to the National Balloon Classic, a nine-day hot air balloon festival held annually in the summer, the Des Moines Metro Opera, a major American Summer Opera Festival, and Simpson College.

[7] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.25 square miles (29.14 km2), all land.

There were 6,409 housing units at an average density of 566.3 per square mile (218.6/km2).

In 2005, a special census was conducted that revised Indianola's population to 14,156.

Religion 21.%-Catholic 64.5%-Protestant 14.1%-non affiliated .4%- Karen Buddhist, (in 2022 a Karen Buddhist temple was establish at the old St Thomas A. Catholic Church site) City Council: Indianola is also the home of the National Balloon Classic and National Balloon Museum.

At one time, it served as a terminus for a branch line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad which came off the CB&Q mainline at Indianola Junction, which was four miles west of Chariton.

The other railroad was the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, which branched off a branch line from Carlisle, which is just southeast of Des Moines, to Summerset Junction, a few miles north of Indianola and on into Winterset.

There was a brick Rock Island depot just to the west of US Highway 65 & 69 in the center of Indianola.

This line maintained sporadic service until the Rock Island went bankrupt in 1980.

The line was converted to the Summerset Trail from Indianola to Carlisle after abandonment.

The Rock Island and CB&Q lines both came in from the east and paralleled each other as they came into Indianola.

They could interchange cars and there was at one point, first class Pullman passenger trains came down the Rock Island and then moved to the CB&Q railroad to Chariton and on to St. Joseph, Missouri.

Laverty Field is three miles north of Indianola and requires prior permission to land.