Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville and Terre Haute. Founded in 1732 by French fur traders, notably François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, for whom the Fort was named, Vincennes is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Indiana and one of the oldest settlements west of the Appalachians. According to the 2010 census, its population was 18,423, a decrease of 1.5% from 18,701 in 2000. Vincennes is the principal city of the Vincennes, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which comprises all of Knox County and had an estimated 2017 population of 38,440. History The vicinity of Vincennes was inhabited for thousands of years by different cultures of indigenous peoples. During the Late Woodland period, some of these peoples used local loess hills as burial sites; some of the more prominent examples are the Sugar Loaf Mound and the Pyramid Mound. In historic times, prominent local Indian groups who drove these people out were the Shawnee, Wabash, and the Miami tribe. The first European settlers were French, when Vincennes was founded as part of the French colony of New France. Later on, it would be transferred to the colony of Louisiana. Several years later, France lost the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years' War), and as result ceded territory east of the Mississippi River, including Vincennes, to the victorious British. Once the area was under British control, it was associated with the Province of Quebec until after the Revolutionary War. It then became part of the Illinois Country of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia. Next it became part of Knox County in the Northwest Territory, and it was later included in the Indiana Territory. Vincennes served as capital of the Indiana Territory from 1800 until 1813, when the government was moved to Corydon. New France The first trading post on the Wabash River was established by Sieur Juchereau, Lieutenant General of Montréal. With thirty-four Canadiens, he founded the company post on October 28, 1702, to trade for Buffalo hides with American Indians. The exact location of Juchereau's trading post is not known, but because the Buffalo Trace crosses the Wabash at Vincennes, many believe it was here. The post was a success; in the first two years, the traders collected