Illinois ( ) is a
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
in the
Midwestern
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Its largest metropolitan areas include the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
, and the
Metro East
Metro East is a region in southern Illinois that contains eastern and northern suburbs and exurbs of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It encompasses five Southern Illinois counties (and parts of three others) in the St. Louis Metropolitan Stati ...
section, of
Greater St. Louis
Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan area that completely surrounds and includes the independent city of St. Louis, the principal city. It includes parts of both Missouri and Illinois. The city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on t ...
. Other smaller metropolitan areas include,
Peoria and
Rockford, as well
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, its capital. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the
fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the
sixth-largest population, and the
25th-largest land area.
Illinois has a highly diverse
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
, with the
global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
hubs in the north and center, and
natural resource
Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...
s such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major
transportation hub
A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. F ...
:
the Port of Chicago has access to the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
through the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
and
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...
and to the Gulf of Mexico from the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
via the
Illinois Waterway
The Illinois Waterway system consists of of navigable water from the mouth of the Calumet River at Chicago to the mouth of the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois. Based primarily on the Illinois River, it is a system of rivers, lakes, and cana ...
. Additionally, the Mississippi,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, and
Wabash rivers form parts of the state's boundaries. Chicago's
O'Hare International Airport
Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, ...
has been among the world's ten busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a
microcosm of the United States and a
bellwether
A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.[bellwether]
" ''Cambridge Dictionary''. Ret ...
in American culture, exemplified by the phrase ''
Will it play in Peoria?
''Will it play in Peoria?'' is an American English figure of speech that is traditionally used to ask whether a given product, person, promotional theme, or event will appeal to mainstream United States audiences or across a broad range of demo ...
''.
What is now Illinois was inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous cultures, including the advanced civilization centered in the
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...
region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi River in the 17th century, in the region they called
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country (french: Pays des Illinois ; , i.e. the Illinois people)—sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana (french: Haute-Louisiane ; es, Alta Luisiana)—was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is n ...
, as part of the sprawling colony of
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
. Following
U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the
Northwest Territory
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1 ...
, and in 1818 it achieved
statehood. The
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...
brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as
one of the few natural harbors in southwestern
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
. The invention of the self-scouring
steel plow
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
by Illinoisan
John Deere
Deere & Company, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy equipment, ...
turned the state's rich
prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...
into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting
immigrant
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
farmers from
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
. In the mid-19th century, the
Illinois and Michigan Canal
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Po ...
and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities, and
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
mining in the central and southern areas, attracted immigrants from
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
and
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...
. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The
Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans, particularly in Chicago, who founded the city's famous
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
cultures. Chicago became a leading cultural, economic, and population center and is today one of the world's major commercial centers; its
metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
, informally referred to as
Chicagoland
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hint ...
holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.
Three
U.S. presidents
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term
Term may refer to:
* Terminology, or term, a noun or compound word used in a specific context, in pa ...
have been elected while living in Illinois:
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
,
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
, and
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
; additionally,
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
was born and raised in the state. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan ''Land of Lincoln'', which has been displayed on its
license plates
A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate (Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificat ...
since 1954. The state is the site of the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ...
in Springfield and the future home of the
Barack Obama Presidential Center
The Barack Obama Presidential Center is a planned architectural project in Chicago to commemorate the presidency of Barack Obama, the List of Presidents of the United States, 44th President of the United States, president of the United States. Th ...
in Chicago.
Etymology
"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early
French Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
and explorers' name for the
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
Native Americans, a name that was spelled in many different ways in the early records.
American scholars previously thought the name ''Illinois'' meant 'man' or 'men' in the
Miami-Illinois language
Miami-Illinois (endonym: , ) also known as Irenwa, or Irenwe is an indigenous Algonquian language spoken in the United States, primarily in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami a ...
, with the original transformed via French into Illinois. This etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for "man" is , and plural of "man" is . The name has also been said to mean 'tribe of superior men', which is a
false etymology
A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...
. The name ''Illinois'' derives from the Miami-Illinois verb 'he speaks the regular way'. This was taken into the
Ojibwe language
Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian lan ...
, perhaps in the
Ottawa dialect, and modified into (pluralized as ). The French borrowed these forms, spelling the ending as , a
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...
of that sound in the French of that time. The current spelling form, ''Illinois'', began to appear in the early 1670s, when French colonists had settled in the western area. The Illinois's name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was , of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms.
History
Pre-European
American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The
Koster Site
The Koster Site is a prehistoric archaeological site located south of Eldred, Illinois. The site covers more than 3 acres and extends 30 feet down into the alluvial deposits of the Illinois River valley. Over the course of its excavation betw ...
has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation.
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...
, the largest regional
chiefdom
A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...
and
Urban Center
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
of the
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
, was located near present-day
Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville is a city located mainly in Madison County, and partially in St. Clair County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 25,579, an increase from 24,707 in 2000. Collinsville is approximately from St. Louis, Mis ...
. They built an urban complex of more than 100
platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
and
burial mound
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
s, a
plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
larger than 35 football fields,
and a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology.
Monks Mound
Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates from 900–955 CE. Located at the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO World Heritage Site near Collinsvil ...
, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...
. It is high, long, wide, and covers .
It contains about of earth.
It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about in length and in width, covered an area , and been as much as high, making its peak above the level of the plaza. The finely crafted ornaments and tools recovered by archaeologists at
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...
include elaborate ceramics, finely sculptured stonework, carefully embossed and engraved copper and
mica
Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...
sheets, and one funeral blanket for an important chief fashioned from 20,000 shell beads. These artifacts indicate that Cahokia was truly an urban center, with clustered housing, markets, and specialists in toolmaking, hide dressing, potting, jewelry making, shell engraving, weaving and salt making.
The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central
Illinois River
The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...
valley, one third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries." The next major power in the region was the
Illinois Confederation
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of 12 to 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michicigao (Michigan) to Iowa, Illi ...
or Illini, a political alliance. As the Illini declined during the
Beaver Wars
The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout t ...
era, members of the
Algonquian-speaking
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
,
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
,
Sauk, and other tribes including the Fox (
Meskwaki
The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquaki), also known by the European exonyms Fox Indians or the Fox, are a Native American people. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, the ...
),
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
,
Kickapoo,
Mascouten
The Mascouten (also ''Mascoutin'', ''Mathkoutench'', ''Muscoden,'' or ''Musketoon'') were a tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans located in the Midwest. They are believed to have dwelt on both sides of the Mississippi River, adjacent to ...
,
Piankeshaw
The Piankeshaw, Piankashaw or Pianguichia were members of the Miami tribe who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation, therefore they were known as Peeyankihšiaki ("splitting off" from the others, Sing.: ''Peeyankihšia'' - "Piankeshaw Pers ...
,
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
,
Wea
The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.
Today, the descendants of the ...
, and Winnebago (
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago (referred to as ''Hotúŋe'' in the neighboring indigenous Iowa-Otoe language), are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iow ...
) came into the area from the east and north around the Great Lakes.
European exploration and settlement prior to 1800
![Illinois 1718](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Illinois_1718.jpg)
French explorers
Jacques Marquette
Jacques Marquette S.J. (June 1, 1637 – May 18, 1675), sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Igna ...
and
Louis Jolliet
Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore an ...
explored the
Illinois River
The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...
in 1673. Marquette soon after founded a mission at the
Grand Village of the Illinois
The Grand Village of the Illinois, also called Old Kaskaskia Village, is a site significant for being the best documented historic Native American village in the Illinois River valley. It was a large agricultural and trading village of Native A ...
in
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country (french: Pays des Illinois ; , i.e. the Illinois people)—sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana (french: Haute-Louisiane ; es, Alta Luisiana)—was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is n ...
. In 1680, French explorers under
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, ...
and
Henri de Tonti
Henri de Tonti (''né'' Enrico Tonti; – September 1704), also spelled Henri de Tonty, was an Italian-born French military officer, explorer, and ''voyageur'' who assisted René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, with North American explora ...
constructed a fort at the site of present-day
Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop
Starved Rock
Starved Rock State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Illinois, characterized by the many canyons within its . Located just southeast of the village of Utica, in Deer Park Township, LaSalle County, Illinois, along the south bank of the ...
in today's Starved Rock State Park. French Empire
Canadiens
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...
came south to settle particularly along the Mississippi River, and Illinois was part of first
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
, and then of
La Louisiane
Louisiana (french: La Louisiane; ''La Louisiane Française'') or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682 to 1769 and 1801 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, ...
until 1763, when it passed to the British with their defeat of France in the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754 ...
. The small French settlements continued, although many French migrated west to
Ste. Genevieve and
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, to evade British rule.
A few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but few British or American settlers moved there, as the Crown made it part of the territory reserved for Indians west of the Appalachians, and then part of the
British Province of Quebec. In 1778,
George Rogers Clark
George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...
claimed
Illinois County
Illinois County, Virginia, was a political and geographic region, part of the British Province of Quebec, claimed during the American Revolutionary War on July 4, 1778 by George Rogers Clark of the Virginia Militia, as a result of the Illinois C ...
for
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. In a compromise, Virginia (and other states that made various claims) ceded the area to the new United States in the 1780s and it became part of the
Northwest Territory
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1 ...
, administered by the federal government and later organized as states.
19th century
Prior to statehood
![Kaskaskia Bell 3321](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Kaskaskia_Bell_3321.jpg)
The
Illinois-Wabash Company
The Illinois-Wabash Company, formally known as the United Illinois and Wabash Land Company, was a company formed in {{start date and age, 1779, p=y from the merger of the Illinois Company and the Wabash Company. The two companies had been establi ...
was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The
Illinois Territory
The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. Its ca ...
was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at
Kaskaskia
The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in t ...
, an early French settlement.
During the discussions leading up to Illinois's
admission to the Union
Admission may refer to:
Arts and media
* "Admissions" (''CSI: NY''), an episode of ''CSI: NY''
* ''Admissions'' (film), a 2011 short film starring James Cromwell
* ''Admission'' (film), a 2013 comedy film
* ''Admission'', a 2019 album by Florida s ...
, the proposed northern boundary of the state was moved twice. The original provisions of the
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Co ...
had specified a boundary that would have been tangent to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Such a boundary would have left Illinois with no shoreline on Lake Michigan at all. However, as Indiana had successfully been granted a northern extension of its boundary to provide it with a usable lakefront, the original bill for Illinois statehood, submitted to Congress on January 23, 1818, stipulated a northern border at the same latitude as Indiana's, which is defined as 10 miles north of the southernmost extremity of Lake Michigan. However, the Illinois delegate,
Nathaniel Pope
Nathaniel W. Pope (January 5, 1784 – January 23, 1850) was an American government leader in the early history of the State of Illinois. He served as the Secretary of the Illinois Territory, then as a Delegate to the United States House of Repres ...
, wanted more, and lobbied to have the boundary moved further north. The final bill passed by Congress included an amendment to shift the border to 42° 30' north, which is approximately north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added to the state, including the
lead mining
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, l ...
region near
Galena
Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.
Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It cryst ...
. More importantly, it added nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Chicago River. Pope and others envisioned a canal that would connect the Chicago and Illinois rivers and thus connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi.
The State of Illinois prior to the Civil War
![United States 1818-12-1819-03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/United_States_1818-12-1819-03.png)
In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, headquartered in a small building rented by the state. In 1819,
Vandalia became the capital, and over the next 18 years, three separate buildings were built to serve successively as the capitol building. In 1837, the state legislators representing
Sangamon County
Sangamon County is located in the center of the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 197,465. Its county seat and largest city is Springfield, the state capital.
Sangamon County is included in the S ...
, under the leadership of state representative Abraham Lincoln, succeeded in having the capital moved to
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, where a
fifth capitol building was constructed. A
sixth capitol building was erected in 1867, which continues to serve as the Illinois capitol today.
Though it was ostensibly a "
free state", there was nonetheless
slavery in Illinois. The ethnic French had owned black slaves since the 1720s, and American settlers had already brought slaves into the area from Kentucky. Slavery was nominally banned by the Northwest Ordinance, but that was not enforced for those already holding slaves. When Illinois became a state in 1818, the Ordinance no longer applied, and about 900 slaves were held in the state. As the southern part of the state, later known as "Egypt" or "Little Egypt", was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was hostile to free blacks. Settlers were allowed to bring slaves with them for labor, but, in 1822, state residents voted against making slavery legal. Still, most residents opposed allowing free blacks as permanent residents. Some settlers brought in slaves seasonally or as house servants. The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853,
John A. Logan
John Alexander Logan (February 9, 1826 – December 26, 1886) was an American soldier and politician. He served in the Mexican–American War and was a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He served the state of Illinois as a st ...
helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
, from settling in the state.
The
winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north, and this may have contributed to its name, "
Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of
Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.
In 1832, the
Black Hawk War
The Black Hawk War was a conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos, known as the "British Band", crosse ...
was fought in Illinois and present-day
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
between the United States and the
Sauk,
Fox (Meskwaki), and
Kickapoo Indian tribes. It represents the end of Indian resistance to white settlement in the Chicago region. The Indians had been forced to leave their homes and move to
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
in 1831; when they attempted to return, they were attacked and eventually defeated by U.S. militia. The survivors were forced back to Iowa.
By 1839, the
Latter Day Saints
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...
had founded a
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
city called
Nauvoo, formerly called Commerce. Located in
Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished and, by 1844, briefly surpassed Chicago for the position of the state's largest city. But in that same year, the
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...
founder,
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he ...
,
was killed in the
Carthage Jail
Carthage Jail is a historic building in Carthage, Illinois, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It was built in 1839 and is best known as the location of the 1844 killing of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint mov ...
, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Following a
succession crisis A succession crisis is a crisis that arises when an order of succession fails, for example when a king dies without an indisputable heir. It may result in a war of succession.
Examples include (see List of wars of succession):
*Multiple periods dur ...
,
Brigham Young
Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second President of the Church (LDS Church), president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his ...
led most Latter Day Saints out of Illinois in a
mass exodus to present-day
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
; after close to six years of rapid development, Nauvoo quickly declined afterward.
After it was established in 1833, Chicago gained prominence as a
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
port, and then as an
Illinois and Michigan Canal
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Po ...
port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois's largest city.
With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in the state in the 19th century, Illinois was the ground for the formation of
labor unions in the United States
Labor unions in the United States are organizations that represent workers in many industries recognized under US labor law since the 1935 enactment of the National Labor Relations Act. Their activity today centers on collective bargaining over w ...
.
In 1847, after lobbying by
Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local
almshouse
An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...
s. Dix came into this effort after having met J. O. King, a
Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville is a city in Morgan County, Illinois, Morgan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 19,446 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Morgan County. It is home to Illinois College, Illinois School for the Deaf, and the ...
businessman, who invited her to Illinois, where he had been working to build an asylum for the insane. With the lobbying expertise of Dix, plans for the Jacksonville State Hospital (now known as the
Jacksonville Developmental Center The Jacksonville Developmental Center was an institution for developmentally delayed clients, located in Jacksonville, Illinois. It was open from 1851 to November 2012. , the grounds was still owned by the State of Illinois.
History
Illinois ori ...
) were signed into law on March 1, 1847.
Civil War and after
![Embarkation of General McClernand's Brigade at Cairo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Embarkation_of_General_McClernand%27s_Brigade_at_Cairo.jpg)
During the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, Illinois ranked fourth in men who served (more than 250,000) in the
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...
, a figure surpassed by only New York,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, and
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Beginning with President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments. The town of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, at the southern tip of the state at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, served as a strategically important supply base and training center for the
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
army. For several months, both General
Grant
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
*Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
*Grant, Inyo County, C ...
and Admiral
Foote had headquarters in Cairo.
During the Civil War, and more so afterwards, Chicago's population skyrocketed, which increased its prominence. The
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chi ...
and
Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in ...
, in particular, greatly influenced the development of the American
labor movement
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
* The trade union movement ...
. From Sunday, October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the
Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...
burned in downtown Chicago, destroying .
20th century
At the turn of the 20th century, Illinois had a population of nearly 5 million. Many people from other parts of the country were attracted to the state by employment caused by the expanding industrial base. Whites were 98% of the state's population.
Bolstered by continued
immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by the African-American
Great Migration from the South, Illinois grew and emerged as one of the most important states in the union. By the end of the century, the population had reached 12.4 million.
The
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...
World's fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in
Marion County and
Crawford County Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States:
* Crawford County, Arkansas
* Crawford County, Georgia
* Crawford County, Illinois
* Crawford County, Indiana
* Crawford County, Iowa
* Crawford County, Kansas
* Crawford County, ...
led to a boom in 1937, and by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production. Illinois manufactured 6.1 percent of total United States military armaments produced during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, ranking seventh among the 48 states. Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...
in 1959. The seaway and the
Illinois Waterway
The Illinois Waterway system consists of of navigable water from the mouth of the Calumet River at Chicago to the mouth of the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois. Based primarily on the Illinois River, it is a system of rivers, lakes, and cana ...
connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
. In 1960,
Ray Kroc
Raymond Albert Kroc (October 5, 1902 – January 14, 1984) was an American businessman. He purchased the fast food company McDonald's in 1961 and was its CEO from 1967 to 1973. Kroc is credited with the global expansion of McDonald's, turnin ...
opened the first
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
franchise in
Des Plaines
Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 60,675. The city is a suburb of Chicago and is located just north of O'Hare International Airport. It is situated on and is named after the ...
(which still exists as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street).
Illinois had a prominent role in the emergence of the
nuclear age
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the ''Trinity'' test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reacti ...
. In 1942, as part of the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, the Chicago Pile-1, University of Chicago conducted the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. In 1957, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in the United States, Dresden Nuclear Power Plant, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris, Illinois, Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near Batavia, Illinois, Batavia, opened a particle accelerator, which was the world's largest for over 40 years. With eleven plants currently operating, Illinois leads all states in the amount of electricity generated from nuclear power.
In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the nation to adopt the recommendation of the American Law Institute and pass a comprehensive criminal code revision that repealed the law against Sodomy laws in the United States, sodomy. The code also abrogated common law crimes and established an age of consent of 18. The state's Illinois Constitution, fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document.
The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign, Illinois, Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland.
21st century
On August 28, 2017, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law that prohibited state and local police from arresting anyone solely due to their immigration status or due to federal detainers. Some fellow Republicans criticized Rauner for his action, claiming the bill made Illinois a Sanctuary city, sanctuary state.
Geology
During the early part of the Paleozoic Era, the area that would one day become Illinois was submerged beneath a shallow sea and located near the Equator. Diverse marine life lived at this time, including trilobites, brachiopods, and crinoids. Changing environmental conditions led to the formation of large Coal forest, coal swamps in the Carboniferous.
Illinois was above sea level for at least part of the Mesozoic, but by its end was again submerged by the Western Interior Seaway. This receded by the Eocene, Eocene Epoch.
During the Pleistocene Epoch, vast ice sheets covered much of Illinois, with only the Driftless Area remaining exposed. These glaciers carved the basin of
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
and left behind traces of ancient glacial lakes and moraines.
Geography
Illinois is located in the Midwestern United States, Midwest region of the United States and is one of the eight states in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great Lakes region of North America (which also includes Ontario, Canada).
Boundaries
Illinois's eastern border with Indiana consists of a north–south line at 87° 31′ 30″ west longitude in
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
at the north, to the Wabash River in the south above Vincennes, Indiana, Post Vincennes. The Wabash River continues as the eastern/southeastern border with Indiana until the Wabash enters the Ohio River. This marks the beginning of Illinois's southern border with
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, which runs along the northern shoreline of the Ohio River. Most of the western border with Missouri and
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
is the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
; Kaskaskia is an exclave of Illinois, lying west of the Mississippi and reachable only from Missouri. The state's northern border with
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
is fixed at 42° 30′ north latitude. The northeastern border of Illinois lies in
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
, within which Illinois shares a water boundary with the state of Michigan, as well as Wisconsin and Indiana.
Topography
![Looking eastward at Charles Mound, the highest point in Illinois](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Looking_eastward_at_Charles_Mound%2C_the_highest_point_in_Illinois.jpg)
Though Illinois lies entirely in the Interior Plains, it does have some minor variation in its elevation. In extreme northwestern Illinois, the Driftless Area, a region of unglaciated and therefore higher and more rugged topography, occupies a small part of the state. Southern Illinois includes the hilly areas around the Shawnee National Forest.
Charles Mound, located in the Driftless region, has the state's highest natural elevation above sea level at . Other highlands include the Shawnee Hills in the south, and there is varying topography along its rivers; the
Illinois River
The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...
bisects the state northeast to southwest. The floodplain on the Mississippi River from Alton, Illinois, Alton to the Kaskaskia River is known as the American Bottom.
Divisions
![Cairo Ohio River Bridge at sunset](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Cairo_Ohio_River_Bridge_at_sunset.jpg)
Illinois has three major geographical divisions. Northern Illinois is dominated by
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
, or Chicagoland, which is the city of Chicago and its suburbs, and the adjoining exurban area into which the metropolis is expanding. As defined by the federal government, the Chicago metro area includes several counties in Illinois, Indiana, and
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, and has a population of over 9.8 million. Chicago itself is a cosmopolitan city, densely populated, industrialized, the transportation hub of the nation, and settled by a wide variety of ethnic groups. The city of Rockford, Illinois, Rockford, Illinois's third-largest city and center of the state's fourth largest metropolitan area, sits along Interstates Interstate 39, 39 and Interstate 90, 90 some northwest of Chicago. The Quad Cities region, located along the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
in northern Illinois, had a population of 381,342 in 2011.
The midsection of Illinois is the second major division, called Central Illinois. Historically
prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...
, it is now mainly agricultural and known as the Heart of Illinois. It is characterized by small towns and medium–small cities. The western section (west of the Illinois River) was originally part of the Military Tract of 1812 and forms the conspicuous western bulge of the state. Agriculture, particularly maize, corn and soybeans, as well as educational institutions and manufacturing centers, figure prominently in Central Illinois. Cities include
Peoria;
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, the state capital; Quincy, Illinois, Quincy; Decatur, Illinois, Decatur; Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, Bloomington-Normal; and Champaign, Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Urbana.
The third division is Southern Illinois, comprising the area south of U.S. Route 50 in Illinois, U.S. Route 50, including
Little Egypt, near the juncture of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
and Ohio River. Southern Illinois is the site of the ancient city of
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...
, as well as the site of the first state capital at
Kaskaskia
The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in t ...
, which today is separated from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River.
This region has a somewhat warmer winter climate, different variety of crops (including some cotton farming in the past), more rugged topography (due to the area remaining unglaciated during the Illinoian (stage), Illinoian Stage, unlike most of the rest of the state), as well as small-scale oil deposits and coal mining. The Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, such as East St. Louis, are located in this region, and collectively, they are known as the Metro-East. The other somewhat significant concentration of population in Southern Illinois is the Carbondale-Marion-Herrin, Illinois Combined Statistical Area centered on Carbondale, Illinois, Carbondale and Marion, Illinois, Marion, a two-county area that is home to 123,272 residents.
A portion of southeastern Illinois is part of the extended Evansville, Indiana, Metro Area, locally referred to as the Tri-State with Indiana and Kentucky. Seven Illinois counties are in the area.
In addition to these three, largely latitudinally defined divisions, all of the region outside the Chicago metropolitan area is often called "Downstate Illinois, downstate" Illinois. This term is flexible, but is generally meant to mean everything outside the influence of the Chicago area. Thus, some cities in ''Northern'' Illinois, such as DeKalb, Illinois, DeKalb, which is west of Chicago, and Rockford, Illinois, Rockford—which is actually north of Chicago—are sometimes incorrectly considered to be 'downstate'.
Climate
![IL koppen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Illinois_K%C3%B6ppen.svg)
Illinois has a climate that varies widely throughout the year. Because of its nearly 400-mile distance between its northernmost and southernmost extremes, as well as its mid-continental situation, most of Illinois has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification ''Dfa''), with hot, humid summers and cold winters. The southern part of the state, from about Carbondale, Illinois, Carbondale southward, has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen ''Cfa''), with more moderate winters. Average yearly precipitation for Illinois varies from just over at the southern tip to around in the northern portion of the state. Normal annual snowfall exceeds in the Chicago area, while the southern portion of the state normally receives less than .
[Illinois State Climatologist Office](_blank)
. Retrieved April 22, 2006. The all-time high temperature was , recorded on July 14, 1954, at East St. Louis, Illinois, East St. Louis, and the all-time low temperature was , recorded on January 31, 2019, during the January 2019 North American cold wave at a weather station near Mount Carroll, Illinois, Mount Carroll,
and confirmed on March 5, 2019.
This followed the previous record of recorded on January 5, 1999, near Congerville, Illinois, Congerville.
Prior to the Mount Carroll record, a temperature of was recorded on January 15, 2009, at Rochelle, Illinois, Rochelle, but at a weather station not subjected to the same quality control as official records.
Illinois averages approximately 51 days of thunderstorm activity a year, which ranks somewhat above average in the number of thunderstorm days for the United States. Illinois is vulnerable to tornadoes, with an average of 35 occurring annually, which puts much of the state at around five tornadoes per annually.
[Annual average number of tornadoes, 1953–2004]
", NOAA National Climatic Data Center. Retrieved October 24, 2006. While tornadoes are no more powerful in Illinois than other states, some of Tornado Alley's deadliest tornadoes on record have occurred in the state. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 killed 695 people in three states; 613 of the victims died in Illinois.
Demographics
![Illinois counties by race](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Illinois_counties_by_race.svg)
The United States Census Bureau found that the population of Illinois was 12,812,508 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 United States census, moving from the fifth-largest state to the sixth-largest state (losing out to Pennsylvania). Illinois' population slightly declined in 2020 from the 2010 United States Census, 2010 United States census by just over 18,000 residents and the overall population was quite higher than recent census estimates.
Illinois is the most populous state in the Midwestern United States, Midwest region. Chicago, the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States, is the center of the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
or Chicagoland, as this area is nicknamed. Although the Chicago metropolitan area comprises only 9% of the land area of the state, it contains 65% of the state's residents. The losses of population anticipated from the 2020 census results do not arise from the Chicago metro area; rather the declines are from the Downstate counties.
2019 American Community Survey
According to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, Illinois's population was 71.4% White American, White (60.7% Non-Hispanic White), 5.6% Asian American, Asian, 0.2% Some Other Race, 13.9% Black or African American, 0.1%
Native Americans and Alaskan Native, 0.1% Pacific Islander and 2.0% from Multiracial American, two or more races.
The White population continues to remain the largest racial category in Illinois as Hispanics primarily identify as White (61.1%) with others identifying as Some Other Race (32.0%), Multiracial (4.3%), Black (1.4%), American Indian and Alaskan Native (0.2%), Asian (0.1%), and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (0.1%).
By ethnicity, 17.5% of the total population is Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic-Latino (of any race) and 82.5% is Non-Hispanic (of any race). If treated as a separate category, Hispanics are the largest minority group in Illinois.
The state's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic white, has declined from 83.5% in 1970 to 60.90% in 2018.
, 49.4% of Illinois's population younger than age 1 were minorities (Note: Children born to white Hispanics or to a sole full or partial minority parent are counted as minorities).
At the 2007 estimates from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau, there were 1,768,518 foreign-born inhabitants of the state or 13.8% of the population, with 48.4% from Latin America, 24.6% from Asia, 22.8% from Europe, 2.9% from Africa, 1.2% from Canada, and 0.2% from Oceania. Of the foreign-born population, 43.7% were United States nationality law, naturalized U.S. citizens, and 56.3% were not U.S. citizens.
In 2007, 6.9% of Illinois's population was reported as being under age 5, 24.9% under age 18 and 12.1% were age 65 and over. Females made up approximately 50.7% of the population.
According to the 2007 estimates, 21.1% of the population had German Americans, German ancestry, 13.3% had Irish Americans, Irish ancestry, 8% had British Americans, British ancestry, 7.9% had Polish Americans, Polish ancestry, 6.4% had Italian Americans, Italian ancestry, 4.6% listed themselves as American (word), American, 2.4% had Swedish Americans, Swedish ancestry, 2.2% had French American, French ancestry, other than Basques, Basque, 1.6% had Dutch Americans, Dutch ancestry, and 1.4% had Norwegian Americans, Norwegian ancestry.
Illinois also has large numbers of African Americans and Latinos (mostly Mexican Americans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the United States, Puerto Ricans).
Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, is the nation's third largest city. In 2000, 23.3% of Illinois's population lived in the city of Chicago, 43.3% in Cook County, and 65.6% in the counties of the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
: Will, DuPage, Kane, Lake, and McHenry counties, as well as Cook County. The remaining population lives in the smaller cities and rural areas that dot the state's plains. As of 2000, the state's center of population was at , located in Grundy County, Illinois, Grundy County, northeast of the village of Mazon, Illinois, Mazon.
Birth data
''Births do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by ethnicity and by race.''
*Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic and Latino Americans, White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one ''Hispanic'' group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Urban areas
Chicago is the largest city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States, with its 2020 population of 2,746,388. The United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau currently lists seven other cities with populations of over 100,000 within Illinois. Based upon the U.S. Census Bureau's official 2010 population:
Aurora, Illinois, Aurora, a Chicago satellite town that eclipsed Rockford, Illinois, Rockford for the title of second-most populous city in Illinois; its 2010 population was 197,899. Rockford, at 152,871, is the third-largest city in the state, and is the largest city in the state not located within the Chicago suburbs. Joliet, Illinois, Joliet, located in metropolitan Chicago, is the fourth-largest city in the state, with a population of 147,433. Naperville, Illinois, Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, is fifth with 141,853. Naperville and Aurora share a boundary along Illinois Route 59.
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, the state's capital, comes in as sixth-most populous with 117,352 residents.
Peoria, which decades ago was the second-most populous city in the state, is seventh with 115,007. The eighth-largest and final city in the 100,000 club is Elgin, Illinois, Elgin, a northwest suburb of Chicago, with a 2010 population of 108,188.
The most populated city in the state south of
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
is Belleville, Illinois, Belleville, with 44,478 people at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is located in the Illinois portion of
Greater St. Louis
Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan area that completely surrounds and includes the independent city of St. Louis, the principal city. It includes parts of both Missouri and Illinois. The city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on t ...
(often called the Metro-East area), which has a rapidly growing population of over 700,000.
Other major urban areas include the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area, which has a combined population of almost 230,000 people, the Illinois portion of the Quad Cities area with about 215,000 people, and the McLean County, Illinois, Bloomington-Normal area with a combined population of over 165,000.
Languages
The official language of Illinois is English language, English, although between 1923 and 1969, state law gave official status to "the American language". Nearly 80% of people in Illinois speak English natively, and most of the rest speak it fluently as a second language. A number of dialects of American English are spoken, ranging from Inland Northern American English and African-American English around Chicago, to Midland American English in Central Illinois, to Southern American English in the far south.
Over 20% of Illinoians speak a language other than English at home, of which Spanish language, Spanish is by far the most widespread, at more than 12% of the total population.
A sizeable number of Polish language, Polish speakers is present in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Illinois Country French has mostly gone extinct in Illinois, although it is still celebrated in the French Colonial Historic District.
Religion
Christianity
Roman Catholics constitute the single largest religious denomination in Illinois; they are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago and account for nearly 30% of the state's population. However, taken together as a group, the various Protestant denominations comprise a greater percentage of the state's population than do Catholics. In 2010, Catholics in Illinois numbered 3,648,907. The largest Protestant denominations were the United Methodist Church with 314,461 members and the Southern Baptist Convention with 283,519. Illinois has one of the largest concentrations of Missouri Synod Lutherans in the United States.
![Bahai Wilmette Alt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Bahai_Wilmette_Alt.jpg)
Illinois played an important role in the early
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...
, with Nauvoo becoming a gathering place for Mormons in the early 1840s. Nauvoo was the location of the Succession crisis (Latter Day Saints), succession crisis, which led to the separation of the Mormon movement into List of denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement, several Latter Day Saint sects. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest of the sects to emerge from the Mormon schism, has more than 55,000 adherents in Illinois today.
Other Abrahamic religious communities
A significant number of adherents of other Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic faiths can be found in Illinois. Largely concentrated in the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
, followers of the Muslim, Baháʼí Faith, Baháʼí, and Jews, Jewish religions all call the state home.
Muslims constituted the largest non-Christian group, with 359,264 adherents.
Illinois has the largest concentration of Muslims by state in the country, with 2,800 Muslims per 100,000 citizens.
The largest and oldest surviving Baháʼí House of Worship (Wilmette, Illinois), Baháʼí House of Worship in the world is located on the shores of
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
in Wilmette, Illinois, one of eight continental Baháʼí House of Worship. It serves as a space for people of all backgrounds and religions to gather, meditate, reflect, and pray, expressing the Baháʼí Faith, Baháʼí principle of the Baháʼí Faith and the unity of religion, oneness of religions. The Chicago area has a very large Jewish community, particularly in the suburbs of Skokie, Illinois, Skokie, Buffalo Grove, Illinois, Buffalo Grove, Highland Park, Illinois, Highland Park, and surrounding suburbs. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was the Windy City's first Jewish mayor.
Other religions
Chicago is also home to a very large population of Hinduism, Hindus, Sikhs, Jainism, Jains, and Buddhism, Buddhists.
Economy
The dollar List of U.S. states by GDP (nominal), gross state product for Illinois was estimated to be billion in 2019. The state's 2019 List of U.S. states by GDP per capita (nominal), per capita gross state product was estimated to be around $72,000.
As of February 2019, the unemployment rate in Illinois reached 4.2%.
Illinois's Minimum wage in the United States, minimum wage will rise to $15 per hour by 2025, making it one of the highest in the nation.
Agriculture
Illinois's major agricultural outputs are maize, corn, soybeans, Pig, hogs, cattle, dairy products, and wheat. In most years, Illinois is either the first or second state for the highest production of soybeans, with a harvest of 427.7 million bushels (11.64 million tonne, metric tons) in 2008, after Iowa's production of 444.82 million bushels (12.11 million metric tons). Illinois ranks second in U.S. corn production with more than 1.5 billion bushels produced annually.
With a production capacity of 1.5 billion gallons per year, Illinois is a top producer of ethanol, ranking third in the United States in 2011.
Illinois is a leader in food manufacturing and meat processing.
[Facts About Illinois Agriculture](_blank)
, Illinois Department of Agriculture. Accessed online April 16, 2012 Although Chicago may no longer be "Chicago (poem), Hog Butcher for the World", the Chicago area remains a global center for Food manufacturers of Chicago, food manufacture and meat processing,
with many plants, processing houses, and distribution facilities concentrated in the area of the former Union Stock Yards. Illinois also produces Illinois wine, wine, and the state is home to two American viticultural areas. In the area of The Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway, peaches and apples are grown. The German immigrants from agricultural backgrounds who settled in Illinois in the mid- to late 19th century are in part responsible for the profusion of fruit orchards in that area of Illinois. Illinois's universities are actively researching alternative agricultural products as alternative crops.
Manufacturing
Illinois is one of the nation's manufacturing leaders, boasting annual value added productivity by manufacturing of over $107 billion in 2006. , Illinois is ranked as the 4th-most productive manufacturing state in the country, behind California, Texas, and Ohio. About three-quarters of the state's manufacturers are located in the Northeastern Opportunity Return Region, with 38 percent of Illinois's approximately 18,900 manufacturing plants located in Cook County. As of 2006, the leading manufacturing industries in Illinois, based upon value-added, were chemical manufacturing ($18.3 billion), machinery manufacturing ($13.4 billion), food manufacturing ($12.9 billion), fabricated metal products ($11.5 billion), transportation equipment ($7.4 billion), plastics and rubber products ($7.0 billion), and computer and electronic products ($6.1 billion).
Services
By the early 2000s, Illinois's economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, law, logistics, and medicine. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois's earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivative (finance), derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures exchange, futures market. Other important non-manufacturing industries include publishing, tourism, and energy production and distribution.
Investments
Venture capitalists funded a total of approximately $62 billion in the U.S. economy in 2016. Of this amount, Illinois-based companies received approximately $1.1 billion. Similarly, in FY 2016, the federal government spent $461 billion on contracts in the U.S. Of this amount, Illinois-based companies received approximately $8.7 billion.
Energy
Illinois is a net importer of fuels for energy, despite large coal resources and some minor oil production. Illinois exports electricity, ranking fifth among states in electricity production and seventh in electricity consumption.
[Illinois in the Global Energy Marketplace]
, Robert Finley, 2001. Illinois State Geological Survey publication.
Coal
The coal industry of Illinois has its origins in the middle 19th century, when entrepreneurs such as Jacob Loose discovered coal in locations such as
Sangamon County
Sangamon County is located in the center of the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 197,465. Its county seat and largest city is Springfield, the state capital.
Sangamon County is included in the S ...
. Jacob Bunn contributed to the development of the Illinois coal industry, and was a founder and owner of the Western Coal & Mining Company of Illinois. About 68% of Illinois has coal-bearing strata of the Pennsylvanian (geology), Pennsylvanian geologic period. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, 211 billion tons of bituminous coal are estimated to lie under the surface, having a total heating value greater than the estimated oil deposits in the Arabian Peninsula. However, this coal has a high sulfur content, which causes acid rain, unless special equipment is used to reduce sulfur dioxide air pollution, emissions.
Many Illinois Power station, power plants are not equipped to burn high-sulfur coal. In 1999, Illinois produced 40.4 million tons of coal, but only 17 million tons (42%) of Illinois coal was consumed in Illinois. Most of the coal produced in Illinois is exported to other states and countries. In 2008, Illinois exported three million tons of coal, and was projected to export nine million in 2011, as demand for energy grows in places such as China, India, and elsewhere in Asia and Europe. , Illinois was ranked third in recoverable coal reserves at producing mines in the nation.
Most of the coal produced in Illinois is exported to other states, while much of the coal burned for power in Illinois (21 million tons in 1998) is mined in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
Mattoon, Illinois, Mattoon was chosen as the site for the United States Department of Energy, Department of Energy's FutureGen project, a 275-megawatt experimental zero emission coal-burning power plant that the DOE just gave a second round of funding. In 2010, after a number of setbacks, the city of Mattoon backed out of the project.
Petroleum
Illinois is a leading refiner of petroleum in the American Midwestern United States, Midwest, with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly . However, Illinois has very limited crude oil proved reserves that account for less than 1% of the U.S. total reserves. Residential heating is 81% natural gas compared to less than 1% heating oil. Illinois is ranked 14th in List of oil-producing states#North America, oil production among states, with a daily output of approximately in 2005.
[United States Department of Energy]
Petroleum Profile: Illinois
. Retrieved April 4, 2006.
Nuclear power
![Illinois wind resource map 50m 800](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Illinois_wind_resource_map_50m_800.jpg)
Nuclear power arguably began in Illinois with the Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the world's first nuclear reactor technology, nuclear reactor, built on the University of Chicago campus. There are six operating nuclear power plants in Illinois: Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station, Braidwood, Byron Nuclear Generating Station, Byron, Clinton Nuclear Generating Station, Clinton, Dresden Nuclear Power Plant, Dresden, LaSalle County Generating Station, LaSalle, and Quad Cities Nuclear Generating Station, Quad Cities. With the exception of the single-unit Clinton plant, each of these facilities has two reactors. Three reactors have been permanently shut down and are in various stages of decommissioning: Dresden-1 and Zion Nuclear Power Station, Zion-1 and 2. Illinois ranked first in the nation in 2010 in both nuclear capacity and nuclear generation. Generation from its nuclear power plants accounted for 12 percent of the nation's total.
In 2007, 48% of Illinois's electricity was generated using nuclear power.
The Morris Operation is the only de facto high-level radioactive waste storage site in the United States.
Wind power
Illinois has seen growing interest in the use of wind power for electrical generation. Most of Illinois was rated in 2009 as "marginal or fair" for wind energy production by the U.S. Department of Energy, with some western sections rated "good" and parts of the south rated "poor". These ratings are for wind turbines with hub heights; newer wind turbines are taller, enabling them to reach wind profile power law, stronger winds farther from the ground. As a result, more areas of Illinois have become prospective wind farm sites. As of September 2009, Illinois had 1116.06 megawatt, MW of installed wind power nameplate capacity with another 741.9 MW under construction.
Illinois ranked ninth among U.S. states in installed wind power capacity, and sixteenth by potential capacity.
Large wind farms in Illinois include Twin Groves Wind Farm, Twin Groves, Rail Splitter Wind Farm, Rail Splitter, Acciona Energy, EcoGrove, and Mendota Hills Wind Farm, Mendota Hills.
As of 2007, wind energy represented only 1.7% of Illinois's energy production, and it was estimated that wind power could provide 5–10% of the state's energy needs. Also, the Illinois General Assembly mandated in 2007 that by 2025, 25% of all electricity generated in Illinois is to come from renewable resources.
Biofuels
Illinois is ranked second in maize, corn production among U.S. states, and Illinois corn is used to produce 40% of the ethanol consumed in the United States.
The Archer Daniels Midland corporation in Decatur, Illinois, is the world's leading producer of ethanol from corn.
The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC), the world's only facility dedicated to researching the ways and means of converting corn (maize) to ethanol is located on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the partners in the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), a $500 million biofuels research project funded by petroleum giant BP.
Taxes
Tax is collected by the Illinois Department of Revenue. State income tax is calculated by multiplying net income by a flat fee, flat rate. In 1990, that rate was set at 3%, but in 2010, the General Assembly voted for a temporary increase in the rate to 5%; the new rate went into effect on January 1, 2011; the personal income rate partially sunset on January 1, 2015, to 3.75%, while the corporate income tax fell to 5.25%. Illinois failed to pass a budget from 2015 to 2017, after the 736-day Illinois Budget Impasse, budget impasse, a budget was passed in Illinois after lawmakers overturned Governor Bruce Rauner's veto; this budget raised the personal income rate to 4.95% and the corporate rate to 7%. There are two rates for state sales tax: 6.25% for general merchandise and 1% for qualifying food, drugs, and medical appliances. The property tax is a major source of tax revenue for local government taxing districts. The property tax is a local—not state—tax, imposed by local government taxing districts, which include counties, civil township, townships, municipalities, school districts, and special taxation districts. The property tax in Illinois is imposed only on real property.
On May 1, 2019, the Illinois Senate voted to approve a Illinois Fair Tax, constitutional amendment that would have stricken language from the Constitution of Illinois, Illinois Constitution requiring a flat state income tax, in a 73–44 vote. If approved, the amendment would have allowed the state legislature to impose a graduated income tax based on annual income. The governor, J. B. Pritzker, J.B. Pritzker, approved the bill on May 27, 2019. It was scheduled for a 2020 general election ballot vote
and required 60 percent voter approval to effectively amend the state constitution.
The amendment was not approved by Illinoisans, with 55.1% of voters voting "No" on approval and 44.9% voting "Yes."
As of 2017 Chicago had the highest state and local sales tax rate for a U.S. city with a populations above 200,000, at 10.250%. The state of Illinois has the second highest rate of real estate tax: 2.31%, which is second only to New Jersey at 2.44%.
Toll roads are a ''de facto'' user tax on the citizens and visitors to the state of Illinois. Illinois ranks seventh out of the 11 states with the most miles of toll roads, at 282.1 miles. Chicago ranks fourth in most expensive toll roads in America by the mile, with the Chicago Skyway charging 51.2 cents per mile. Illinois also has the 11th highest gasoline tax by state, at 37.5 cents per gallon.
Culture
Museums
Illinois has numerous museums; the greatest concentration of these are in Chicago. Several museums in Chicago are ranked as some of the best in the world. These include the Shedd Aquarium, John G. Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), Museum of Science and Industry.
The modern
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ...
in Springfield is the largest and most attended Presidential library system, presidential library in the country. The Illinois State Museum boasts a collection of 13.5 million objects that tell the story of Illinois life, land, people, and art. The ISM is among only 5% of the nation's museums that are accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Other historical museums in the state include the Polish Museum of America in Chicago; Magnolia Manor (Cairo, Illinois), Magnolia Manor in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
; Easley Pioneer Museum in Ipava, Illinois, Ipava; the Elihu Benjamin Washburne House, Elihu Benjamin Washburne; Ulysses S. Grant Homes, both in
Galena
Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.
Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It cryst ...
; and the Chanute Air Museum, located on the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul.
The Chicago metropolitan area also hosts two zoos: The Brookfield Zoo, located about ten miles west of the city center in suburban Brookfield, Illinois, Brookfield, contains more than 2,300 animals and covers . The Lincoln Park Zoo is located in Lincoln Park on Chicago's North Side, approximately north of the downtown Chicago, Loop. The zoo accounts for more than of the park.
Vandalia-Courthouse.jpg, Vandalia State House State Historic Site in Vandalia
460955752 a95ede20a4 o.jpg, The Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
Magnolia Manor.jpg, Magnolia Manor (Cairo, Illinois), Magnolia Manor is a Victorian period historic house museum in Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
.
Lincoln Home 1.jpg, Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
20070822 Polish Museum.JPG, The Polish Museum of America in Chicago
CBQ 1926 20050716 Illinois Railway Museum.jpg, A Railway Post Office preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, Union
Music
Illinois is a leader in music education, having hosted the Midwest Clinic, Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference since 1946, as well being home to the Illinois Music Educators Association (ILMEA, formerly IMEA), one of the largest professional music educator's organizations in the country. Each summer since 2004, Southern Illinois University Carbondale has played host to the Southern Illinois Music Festival, which presents dozens of performances throughout the region. Past featured artists include the Eroica Trio and violinist David Kim (violinist), David Kim.
Chicago, in the northeast corner of the state, is a Music of Chicago, major center for music in the midwestern United States where distinctive forms of blues (greatly responsible for the future creation of rock and roll), and house music, a genre of electronic dance music, were developed.
The
Great Migration of poor black workers from the South into the industrial cities brought traditional
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and blues music to the city, resulting in Chicago blues and "Chicago-style" Dixieland
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
. Notable blues artists included Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf and both Sonny Boy Williamson II, Sonny Boy Williamsons; jazz greats included Nat King Cole, Gene Ammons, Benny Goodman, and Bud Freeman. Chicago is also well known for its soul music.
In the early 1930s, Gospel music began to gain popularity in Chicago due to Thomas A. Dorsey's contributions at Pilgrim Baptist Church.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hard rock, heavy rock, punk rock, punk, and Hip hop music, hip hop also became popular in Chicago. Orchestras in Chicago include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Chicago Sinfonietta.
Movies
John Hughes (filmmaker), John Hughes, who moved from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Grosse Pointe to Northbrook, Illinois, Northbrook, based many films of his in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, and its suburbs. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, and all his films take place in the fictional Shermer, Illinois (the original name of Northbrook was Shermerville, and Hughes's High School, Glenbrook North High School, is on Shermer Road). Most locations in his films include Glenbrook North, the former Maine North High School, the Ben Rose House in Highland Park, and the famous Home Alone house in Winnetka, Illinois.
Sports
Major league sports
As one of the United States' major metropolises, all Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, major sports leagues have teams headquartered in Chicago.
*Two Major League Baseball teams are located in the state. The Chicago Cubs of the National League play in the second-oldest major league stadium, Wrigley Field, and went the longest length of time without a championship in all of major American sport, from 1908 to 2016, when they won the World Series. The Chicago White Sox of the American League won the World Series in 2005, their first since 1917. They play on the city's south side at Guaranteed Rate Field.
*The Chicago Bears football team has won nine total List of NFL champions, NFL Championships, the last occurring in Super Bowl XX on January 26, 1986.
*The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association, NBA is one of the most recognized basketball, basketball teams in the world, largely as a result of the efforts of Michael Jordan, who led the team to six NBA championships in eight seasons in the 1990s.
*The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League, NHL began playing in 1926–27 NHL season, 1926, and became a member of the Original Six once the NHL dropped to that number of teams during World War II. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, most recently in 2014–15 NHL season, 2015.
*Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer, MLS and has been one of the league's most successful and best-supported clubs since its founding in 1997, winning one league and four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cups in that timespan. The team played in Bridgeview, Illinois, Bridgeview, adjacent to Chicago from 2006 to 2019. The team now plays at Soldier Field in Chicago.
*The Chicago Red Stars have played at the top level of U.S. women's soccer since their formation in 2009, except in the 2011 season. The team currently plays in the National Women's Soccer League, playing at SeatGeek Stadium, the Bridgeview venue it formerly shared with Fire FC.
*The Chicago Sky have played in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) since 2006. The Sky won their first WNBA Championship in 2021. They play at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
*The Chicago Bandits of the National Pro Fastpitch, NPF, a women's softball league; have won four league titles, most recently in 2016. They play at Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont, Illinois in the Chicago area.
Minor league sports
Many minor league teams also call Illinois their home. They include:
*The Bloomington Edge of the Indoor Football League
*The Bloomington Flex of the Midwest Professional Basketball Association
*The Chicago Dogs of the American Association of Professional Baseball
* Chicago Fire FC II of MLS Next Pro
*The Chicago Wolves are an American Hockey League, AHL team playing in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, Rosemont
*The Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League in Sauget, Illinois
*The Kane County Cougars of the American Association of Professional Baseball, American Association
*The Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League
*The Peoria Chiefs of the Midwest League
*The Peoria Rivermen (SPHL), Peoria Rivermen are an Southern Professional Hockey League, SPHL team
*The Rockford Aviators of the Frontier League
*The Rockford IceHogs of the AHL
*The Schaumburg Boomers of the Frontier League
*The Southern Illinois Miners based out of Marion, Illinois, Marion in the Frontier League
*The Windy City Bulls, playing in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, Hoffman Estates, of the NBA G League
*The Windy City ThunderBolts of the Frontier League
College sports
The state features 13 athletic programs that compete in NCAA Division I, the highest level of U.S. college sports.
The two most prominent are the Illinois Fighting Illini and Northwestern Wildcats, both members of the Big Ten Conference and the only ones competing in one of the so-called "Power Five conferences". The Fighting Illini football team has won five national championships and three Rose Bowl Games, whereas the men's basketball team has won 17 conference seasons and played five Final Fours. Meanwhile, the Wildcats have won eight football conference championships and one Rose Bowl Game.
The Northern Illinois Huskies from DeKalb, Illinois compete in the Mid-American Conference winning four conference championships and earning a bid in the Orange Bowl along with producing Heisman candidate Jordan Lynch at quarterback. The Huskies are the state's only other team competing in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision, the top level of NCAA football.
Four schools have football programs that compete in the second level of Division I football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Illinois State Redbirds (Normal, adjacent to Bloomington) and Southern Illinois Salukis (representing Southern Illinois University's main campus in Carbondale) are members of the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) for non-football sports and the Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC). The Western Illinois Leathernecks (Macomb) are full members of the Summit League, which does not sponsor football, and also compete in the MVFC. The Eastern Illinois Panthers (Charleston) are members of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC).
The city of Chicago is home to four Division I programs that do not sponsor football. The DePaul Blue Demons, with main campuses in Lincoln Park and the Loop, are members of the Big East Conference. The Loyola Ramblers, with their main campus straddling the Edgewater and Rogers Park community areas on the city's far north side, compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The UIC Flames, from the Near West Side next to the Loop, are in the MVC. The Chicago State Cougars, from the city's south side, are one of only two NCAA Division I independent schools#Full independents, all-sports independents in Division I after leaving the Western Athletic Conference in 2022.
Finally, two non-football Division I programs are located downstate. The Bradley Braves (Peoria) are MVC members, and the SIU Edwardsville Cougars (in the Metro East region across the Mississippi River from St. Louis) compete in the OVC.
Former Chicago sports franchises
=Folded teams
=
The city was formerly home to several other teams that either failed to survive or belonged to leagues that folded.
*The Chicago Blitz, United States Football League 1983–1984
*The Chicago Sting, North American Soccer League (1968–1984), North American Soccer League 1975–1984 and Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992), Major Indoor Soccer League
*The Chicago Cougars, World Hockey Association 1972–1975
*The Chicago Rockers, Continental Basketball Association
*The Las Vegas Rattlers, Chicago Skyliners, American Basketball Association (2000–present), American Basketball Association 2000–01
*The Chicago Bruisers, Arena Football League (1987–2008), Arena Football League 1987–1989
*The Chicago Power, National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001), National Professional Soccer League 1984–2001
*The Chicago Blaze (basketball), Chicago Blaze, National Women's Basketball League
*The Rochester Rattlers, Chicago Machine, Major League Lacrosse
*The Chicago Whales of the Federal Baseball League, a rival league to Major League Baseball from 1914 to 1916
*The Chicago American Giants of the Negro league baseball, Negro baseball league, 1910–1952
*The Chicago Bruins of the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball League, 1939–1942
*The Chicago Studebaker Flyers of the National Basketball League (United States), NBL, 1942–43
*The Chicago American Gears of the NBL, 1944–1947
*The Chicago Stags of the Basketball Association of America, 1946–1950
*The Chicago Majors of the American Basketball League, 1961–1963
*The Chicago Express of the ECHL
*The Chicago Enforcers of the XFL (2001), XFL pro football league
*The Chicago Fire (WFL), Chicago Fire, World Football League 1974
*The Chicago Winds, World Football League 1975
*The Chicago Hustle, Women's Professional Basketball League 1978–1981
*The Chicago Mustangs (1967–68), Chicago Mustangs, North American Soccer League (1968–1984), North American Soccer League 1966–1967
*The Chicago Rush, Arena Football League 2001–2013
*The Chicago Storm (professional softball team), Chicago Storm, men's professional softball leagues, American Professional Slo-Pitch League (APSPL), 1977-1978
*The Chicago Nationwide Advertising (professional softball team), Chicago Nationwide Advertising, men's professional softball leagues, North American Softball League (NASL), 1980
=Relocated teams
=
The NFL's Arizona Cardinals, who currently play in the Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona, played in Chicago as the History of the Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Cardinals, until moving to St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri after the 1959 season. An NBA expansion team known as the Chicago Packers in 1961–1962, and as the Chicago Zephyrs the following year, moved to Baltimore after the 1962–1963 season. The franchise is now known as the Washington Wizards.
Professional sports teams outside Chicago
The Peoria Chiefs are a High-A minor league baseball team affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Schaumburg Boomers, Southern Illinois Miners, Gateway Grizzlies, Joliet Slammers and Windy City ThunderBolts all belong to the Independent baseball league, independent Frontier League. Additionally, the Kane County Cougars play in the American Association of Professional Baseball, American Association and the Lake County Fielders were members of the former North American League (baseball), North American League.
In addition to the Chicago Wolves, the AHL also has the Rockford IceHogs serving as the AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks. The second incarnation of the Peoria Rivermen (SPHL), Peoria Rivermen plays in the Southern Professional Hockey League, SPHL.
Motor racing
Motor racing oval tracks at the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois, Joliet, the Chicago Motor Speedway in Cicero, Illinois, Cicero and the Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois, Madison, near St. Louis, have hosted NASCAR, Champ Car, CART, and Indy Racing League, IRL races, whereas the Sports Car Club of America, among other national and regional road racing clubs, have visited the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, the Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit, Illinois, South Beloit and the former Meadowdale International Raceway in Carpentersville, Illinois, Carpentersville. Illinois also has several Short track motor racing, short tracks and dragstrips. The dragstrip at Gateway International Raceway and the Route 66 Raceway, which sits on the same property as the Chicagoland Speedway, both host NHRA drag races.
Golf
Illinois features several golf courses, such as Olympia Fields Country Club, Olympia Fields, Medinah Country Club, Medinah, Midlothian Country Club, Midlothian, Cog Hill Golf & Country Club, Cog Hill, and Conway Farms Golf Club, Conway Farms, which have often hosted the BMW Championship (PGA Tour), BMW Championship, Western Open, and Women's Western Open.
Also, the state has hosted 13 editions of the U.S. Open (golf), U.S. Open (latest at Olympia Fields in 2003), six editions of the PGA Championship (latest at Medinah in 2006), three editions of the U.S. Women's Open (latest at The Merit Club), the 2009 Solheim Cup (at Rich Harvest Farms), and the 2012 Ryder Cup (at Medinah).
The John Deere Classic is a regular PGA Tour event played in the Quad Cities since 1971, whereas the Encompass Championship is a Champions Tour event since 2013. Previously, the LPGA State Farm Classic was an LPGA Tour event from 1976 to 2011.
Parks and recreation
The Illinois state parks system began in 1908 with what is now Fort Massac State Park, becoming the first park in a system encompassing more than 60 parks and about the same number of recreational and wildlife areas.
Areas under the protection of the National Park Service include: the Illinois and Michigan Canal, Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor near Lockport, Illinois, Lockport, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, the Mormon Trail, Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail, the Trail of Tears, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the American Discovery Trail, and the Pullman National Monument. The federal government also manages the Shawnee National Forest and the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.
Law and politics
In a 2020 study, Illinois was ranked as the 4th easiest state for citizens to vote in.
State government
The government of Illinois, under the Constitution of Illinois, has three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch is split into several statewide elected offices, with the governor as chief executive. Legislative functions are granted to the Illinois General Assembly. The judiciary is composed of the Supreme Court and lower courts.
The Illinois General Assembly is the state legislature, composed of the 118-member Illinois House of Representatives and the 59-member Illinois Senate. The members of the General Assembly are elected at the beginning of each even-numbered year. The ''Illinois Compiled Statutes'' (ILCS) are the codification (law), codified statutes of a general and permanent nature.
The executive branch is composed of six elected officers and their offices as well as numerous other departments.
[ The six elected officers are:][ Governor of Illinois, Governor, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Lieutenant Governor, Illinois Attorney General, Attorney General, Illinois Secretary of State, Secretary of State, Illinois Comptroller, Comptroller, and Illinois Treasurer, Treasurer. The government of Illinois has numerous departments, agencies, boards and commissions, but the so-called code departments provide most of the state's services.]
The Judiciary of Illinois is the unified court system of Illinois. It consists of the Supreme Court of Illinois, Supreme Court, Illinois Appellate Court, Appellate Court, and Illinois Circuit Courts, Circuit Courts. The Supreme Court oversees the administration of the court system.
The administrative divisions of Illinois are counties, townships, precincts, cities, towns, villages, and special-purpose districts. The basic subdivision of Illinois are the 102 counties. Eighty-five of the 102 counties are in turn divided into townships and precincts. Municipal governments are the cities, villages, and incorporated towns. Some localities possess ''home rule'', which allows them to govern themselves to a certain extent.
Party balance
Illinois is a Red states and blue states, Democratic stronghold. Historically, Illinois was a political swing state, with near-parity existing between the Republican Party (United States), Republican and the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic parties. However, in recent elections, the Democratic Party has gained ground, and Illinois has come to be seen as a solid Red states and blue states, "blue" state in presidential campaigns. Votes from Chicago and most of Cook County have long been strongly Democratic. However, the "collar counties" (the suburbs surrounding Chicago's Cook County, Illinois), can be seen as moderate voting districts. College towns like Carbondale, Champaign, and Normal also lean Democratic.
Republicans continue to prevail in the rural areas of northern and central Illinois, as well as southern Illinois outside of East St. Louis, Illinois, East St. Louis. From 1920 United States presidential election, 1920 until 1972 United States presidential election, 1972, Illinois was carried by the victor of each of these 14 presidential elections. In fact, the state was long seen as a national bellwether, supporting the winner in every election in the 20th century, except for 1916 United States presidential election, 1916 and 1976 United States presidential election in Illinois, 1976. By contrast, Illinois has trended more toward the Democratic party, and has voted for their presidential candidates in the last six elections; in 2000 United States presidential election in Illinois, 2000, George W. Bush became the first Republican to win the presidency without carrying either Illinois or Vermont. Local politician and Chicago resident Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
easily won the state's 21 electoral votes in 2008 United States presidential election in Illinois, 2008, with 61.9% of the vote. In 2010, incumbent governor Pat Quinn (politician), Pat Quinn was re-elected with 47% of the vote, while Republican Mark Kirk was elected to the Senate with 48% of the vote. In 2012, President Obama easily carried Illinois again, with 58% to Republican candidate Mitt Romney's 41%. In 2014, Republican Bruce Rauner defeated Governor Quinn 50% to 46% to become Illinois's first Republican governor in 12 years after being sworn in on January 12, 2015, while Democratic senator Dick Durbin was re-elected with 53% of the vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Illinois with 55% of the vote, and Tammy Duckworth defeated incumbent Mark Kirk 54% to 40%. George W. Bush and Donald Trump are the only Republican Party (United States), Republican presidential candidates to win without carrying either Illinois or Vermont. In 2018 Illinois gubernatorial election, 2018, Democrat J. B. Pritzker, JB Pritzker defeated the incumbent Bruce Rauner for the governorship with 54% of the vote.
History of corruption
Politics in the state have been infamous for highly visible corruption cases, as well as for crusading reformers, such as governors Adlai Stevenson II, Adlai Stevenson and James R. Thompson. In 2006, former governor George Ryan was convicted of racketeering and bribery, leading to a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence. In 2008, then-Governor Rod Blagojevich was served with a criminal complaint on corruption charges, stemming from allegations that he conspired to sell the vacated Senate seat left by President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
to the highest bidder. Subsequently, on December 7, 2011, Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison for those charges, as well as perjury while testifying during the case, totaling 18 convictions. Blagojevich was impeached and convicted by the legislature, resulting in his removal from office. In the late 20th century, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski was imprisoned for mail fraud; former governor and federal judge Otto Kerner, Jr. was imprisoned for bribery; Secretary of State Paul Powell (politician), Paul Powell was investigated and found to have gained great wealth through bribes, and State Auditor of Public Accounts (Comptroller) Orville Hodge was imprisoned for embezzlement. In 1912, William Lorimer, the GOP boss of Chicago, was expelled from the U.S. Senate for bribery and in 1921, Governor Len Small was found to have defrauded the state of a million dollars.
U.S. presidential elections
Illinois has shown a strong presence in presidential elections. Three presidents have claimed Illinois as their political base when running for president: Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
, Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
, and most recently Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. Lincoln was born in Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, but he moved to Illinois at age 21. He served in the Illinois General Assembly, General Assembly and represented the Illinois's 7th congressional district, 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives before his election to the presidency in 1860. Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
was born in Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and had a military career that precluded settling down, but on the eve of the American Civil War, Civil War and approaching middle age, he moved to Illinois and thus utilized the state as his home and political base when running for president. Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
was born in Hawaii and made Illinois his home after graduating from law school, and later represented Illinois in the United States Senate, U.S. Senate. He then became president in 2008, running as a candidate from his Illinois base.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
was born in Illinois, in the city of Tampico, Illinois, Tampico, raised in Dixon, Illinois, and educated at Eureka College, outside Peoria. Reagan later moved to California during his young adulthood. He then became an actor, and later became Governor of California, California's Governor before being elected president.
Hillary Clinton was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago and became the first woman to represent a major political party in the general election of the U.S. presidency. Clinton ran from a platform based in New York (state), New York State.
African-American U.S. senators
List of African-American United States Senators, Eleven African-Americans have served as members of the United States Senate. Of which three have represented Illinois, the most of any single state: Carol Moseley Braun, Carol Moseley-Braun, Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
, and Roland Burris, who was appointed to replace Obama after his election to the presidency. Moseley-Braun was the first African-American woman to become a U.S. Senator.
Political families
Three families from Illinois have played particularly prominent roles in the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, gaining both statewide and national fame.
Stevenson
The Stevenson family, initially rooted in central Illinois and later based in the Chicago metropolitan area, has provided four generations of Illinois officeholders.
*Adlai Stevenson I (1835–1914) was a Vice President of the United States, as well as a Congressman
*Lewis Stevenson (politician), Lewis Stevenson (1868–1929), son of Adlai, served as Illinois Secretary of State.
*Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965), son of Lewis, served as Governor of Illinois and as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; he was also the Democratic party's presidential nominee in 1952 United States presidential election, 1952 and 1956 United States presidential election, 1956, losing both elections to Dwight Eisenhower.
*Adlai Stevenson III (1930–2021), son of Adlai II, served ten years as a United States Senator.
Daley
The Daley family's powerbase was in Chicago.
*Richard J. Daley (1902–1976) served as Mayor of Chicago from 1955 to his death.
*Richard M. Daley (1942–), son of Richard J, was Chicago's longest-serving mayor, in office from 1989 to 2011.
*William M. Daley (1948–), another son of Richard J, is a former White House Chief of Staff and has served in a variety of appointed positions.
Pritzker
The Pritzker family is based in Chicago and have played important roles in both the private and the public sectors.
*Jay Pritzker (1922–1999), co-founder of Hyatt Hotel based in Chicago.
*Penny Pritzker (born 1959), 38th United States Secretary of Commerce under President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
.
*J.B. Pritzker (born 1965), current and 43rd governor of Illinois and co-founder of the Pritzker Group.
Education
Illinois State Board of education
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is autonomous of the governor and the state legislature, and administers public education in the state. Local municipalities and their respective school districts operate individual public schools, but the ISBE audits performance of public schools with the Illinois School Report Card. The ISBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.
Primary and secondary schools
Education is compulsory for ages 7–17 in Illinois. Schools are commonly, but not exclusively, divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school, middle school or Middle school, junior high school, and high school. District territories are often complex in structure. Many areas in the state are actually located in ''two'' school districts—one for high school, the other for elementary and middle schools. And such districts do not necessarily share boundaries. A given high school may have several elementary districts that feed into it, yet some of those feeder districts may themselves feed into multiple high school districts.
Colleges and universities
Using the criterion established by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, there are eleven "National Universities" in the state.
The University of Chicago is continuously ranked as one of the world's top ten universities on various independent university rankings, and its Booth School of Business, along with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management consistently rank within the top five graduate business schools in the country and top ten globally. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is often ranked among the best engineering schools in the world and in United States.
, six of these rank in the "first tier" among the top 500 National Universities in the nation, as determined by the ''U.S. News & World Report'' rankings: the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Loyola University Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, DePaul University, University of Illinois Chicago, Illinois State University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Northern Illinois University.
Illinois also has more than twenty additional Educational accreditation, accredited four-year universities, both public and private, and dozens of small liberal arts colleges across the state. Additionally, Illinois supports 49 public community colleges in the Illinois Community College System.
School financing
Schools in Illinois are funded primarily by property taxes, based on state assessment of property values, rather than direct state contributions. Scholar Tracy Steffes has described Illinois public education as historically “inequitable,” a system where one of “the wealthiest of states” is “the stingiest in its support for education.” There have been several attempts to reform school funding in Illinois. The most notable attempt came in 1973 with the adoption of the Illinois Resource Equalizer Formula, a measure through which it was hoped funding could be collected and distributed to Illinois schools more equitably. However, opposition from affluent Illinois communities who objected to having to pay for the less well-off school districts (many of them Black majority communities, produced by redlining, white flight, and other “soft” segregation methods) resulted in the formula's abolition in the late 1980s.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Because of its central location and its proximity to the Rust Belt and Grain Belt, Illinois is a national crossroads for air, auto, rail, and truck traffic.
Airports
From 1962 until 1998, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, ...
(ORD) was the busiest airport in the world, measured both in terms of total flights and passengers. While it was surpassed by Atlanta's Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Hartsfield in 1998 (as Chicago splits its air traffic between O'Hare and Midway airports, while Atlanta uses only one airport), with 59.3 million domestic passengers annually, along with 11.4 million international passengers in 2008, O'Hare consistently remains one of the two or three busiest airports globally, and in some years still ranks number one in total flights. It is a major airline hub, hub for both United Airlines and American Airlines, and a major airport expansion project is currently underway. Chicago Midway International Airport, Midway Airport (MDW), which had been the busiest airport in the world at one point until it was supplanted by O'Hare as the busiest airport in 1962, is now the secondary airport in the Chicago metropolitan area and still ranks as one of the nation's busiest airports. Midway is a major hub for Southwest Airlines and services many other carriers as well. Midway served 17.3 million domestic and international passengers in 2008.
Rail
Illinois has an extensive passenger and freight rail transportation network. Chicago is a national Amtrak hub and in-state passengers are served by Amtrak's Illinois Service, featuring the Chicago to Carbondale Illini (Amtrak), ''Illini'' and Saluki (Amtrak), ''Saluki'', the Chicago to Quincy Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, ''Carl Sandburg'' and ''Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, Illinois Zephyr'', and the Chicago to St. Louis ''Lincoln Service''. Currently there is trackwork on the Chicago–St. Louis line to bring the maximum speed up to , which would reduce the trip time by an hour and a half. Nearly every North American railway meets at Chicago, making it the largest and most active rail hub in the country. Extensive commuter rail is provided in the city proper and some immediate suburbs by the Chicago Transit Authority's Chicago "L", 'L' system. One of the largest suburban commuter rail system in the United States, operated by Metra, uses existing rail lines to provide direct commuter rail access for hundreds of suburbs to the city and beyond.
In addition to the state's rail lines, the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
and Illinois River
The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...
provide major transportation routes for the state's agricultural interests. Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
gives Illinois access to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...
.
Interstate highway system
The Interstate Highways in Illinois are all segments of the Interstate Highway System that are owned and maintained by the state.
Illinois has the distinction of having the most primary (two-digit) interstates pass through it among all the 50 states with 13. Illinois also ranks third among the fifty states with the most interstate mileage, coming in after California and Texas, which are much bigger states in area.
Major U.S. Interstate highways crossing the state include: Interstate 24 in Illinois, Interstate 24 (I-24), Interstate 39 in Illinois, I-39, Interstate 41, I-41, Interstate 55 in Illinois, I-55, Interstate 57 in Illinois, I-57, Interstate 64 in Illinois, I-64, Interstate 70 in Illinois, I-70, Interstate 72 in Illinois, I-72, Interstate 74 in Illinois, I-74, Interstate 80 in Illinois, I-80, Interstate 88 (Illinois), I-88, Interstate 90 in Illinois, I-90, and Interstate 94 in Illinois, I-94.
U.S. highway system
The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) is responsible for maintaining the United States Numbered Highways, U.S Highways in Illinois. The system in Illinois consists of 21 List of U.S. Highways, primary highways.
Among the U.S. highways that pass through the state, the primary ones are: U.S. Route 6 in Illinois, US 6, U.S. Route 12 in Illinois, US 12, U.S. Route 14 in Illinois, US 14, U.S. Route 20 in Illinois, US 20, U.S. Route 24 in Illinois, US 24, U.S. Route 30 in Illinois, US 30, U.S. Route 34 in Illinois, US 34, U.S. Route 36 in Illinois, US 36, U.S. Route 40 in Illinois, US 40, U.S. Route 41 in Illinois, US 41, U.S. Route 45 in Illinois, US 45, U.S. Route 50 in Illinois, US 50, U.S. Route 51 in Illinois, US 51, U.S. Route 52 in Illinois, US 52, U.S. Route 54 in Illinois, US 54, U.S. Route 60 in Illinois, US 60, U.S. Route 62 in Illinois, US 62, and U.S. Route 67 in Illinois, US 67.
Gallery
IllinoisLicensePlates.jpg, Standard license plate introduced in 2017
Illinois 2002 series passenger plate sample 000 0000.gif, Standard license plate 2001 to 2016
1987-Illinois-license-plate.png, Illinois license plate design used throughout the 1980s and 1990s, displaying the ''Land of Lincoln'' slogan that has been featured on the state's plates since 1954
See also
*Index of Illinois-related articles
*List of people from Illinois
*Outline of Illinois
Notes
References
Further reading
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External links
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Illinois: State Resource Guide, from the Library of Congress
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Illinois Office of Tourism
Illinois - State Energy Profile Overview
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
State Fact Sheets: Illinois
USDA's Economic Research Service
USGS Central Midwest Water Science Center
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Illinois,
1818 establishments in the United States
Former French colonies
Midwestern United States
States and territories established in 1818
States of the United States
Contiguous United States