Shelbyville is a city in the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Shelby County. The population was 19,191 as of the 2010 census. Shelbyville is located in Central Indiana and within the Indianapolis metropolitan area. It is 26 miles (42 km) southeast of Indianapolis. The city is at the fork of the Little Blue and Big Blue Rivers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.84 square miles (30.67 km2), of which 11.56 square miles (29.94 km2) is land and 0.28 square miles (0.73 km2) is water. In 1818, the land that would become Shelbyville was ceded to the United States by the Miami tribe in the Treaty of St. Mary's. Also in 1818, the backwoodsman Jacob Whetzel and a party cut a trail through this "New Purchase" from the Whitewater River at Laurel due west to the White River at Waverly. This trail became known as Whetzel's Trace and was the first east-west road into the New Purchase of central Indiana. Whetzel's Trace was cut just 4 miles north of site of Shelbyville and proved important in the settlement of Shelby County. Shelbyville was incorporated January 21, 1850, by a special act of the Legislature, according to county histories. Shelbyville was named in honor of Isaac Shelby, the first and fifth Governor of Kentucky and soldier in Lord Dunmore's War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812.