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Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. 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, 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 resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Additionally, the Mississippi, Ohio, 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 Microcosm or macrocosm, also spelled mikrokosmos or makrokosmos, may refer to: Philosophy * Microcosm–macrocosm analogy, the view according to which there is a structural similarity between the human being and the cosmos Music * Macrocosm (alb ...
of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase '' Will it play in Peoria?''. What is now Illinois was inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous cultures, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia 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, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky 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 A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "sta ...
. The Erie Canal 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 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 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 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 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 mining in the central and southern areas, attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. 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 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 have been elected while living in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; 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 since 1954. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.


Etymology

"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
Catholic
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 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, 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. The name ''Illinois'' derives from the Miami-Illinois verb 'he speaks the regular way'. This was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the
Ottawa dialect The Ottawa, also known as the Odawa dialect of the Ojibwe language is spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma. Th ...
, and modified into (pluralized as ). The French borrowed these forms, spelling the ending as , a transliteration 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 has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and Urban Center of the Pre-Columbian
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. They built an urban complex of more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a plaza larger than 35 football fields, and a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico. 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 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 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, Sauk, and other tribes including the Fox ( Meskwaki), Iowa,
Kickapoo Kickapoo may refer to: People * Kickapoo people, a Native American nation ** Kickapoo language, spoken by that people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, a federally recognized tribe of Kickapoo people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, a federally recog ...
,
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, Shawnee, Wea, 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

French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet 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 in Illinois Country. 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 constructed a fort at the site of present-day Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. French Empire Canadiens came south to settle particularly along the Mississippi River, and Illinois was part of first New France, and then of La Louisiane until 1763, when it passed to the British with their defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. The small French settlements continued, although many French migrated west to Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, Missouri, 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. 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

The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia, an early French settlement. During the discussions leading up to Illinois's admission to the Union, 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, 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 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

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, 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 helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, 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 Joseph (; he, יוֹסֵף, , He shall add; Standard: ''Yōsef'', Tiberian: ''Yōsēp̄''; alternatively: יְהוֹסֵף, lit. 'Yahweh shall add'; Standard: ''Yəhōsef'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōsēp̄''; ar, يوسف, Yūsuf; grc, Ἰωσ ...
supplying grain to his brothers. In 1832, the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox (Meskwaki), and
Kickapoo Kickapoo may refer to: People * Kickapoo people, a Native American nation ** Kickapoo language, spoken by that people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, a federally recognized tribe of Kickapoo people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, a federally recog ...
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 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 had founded a utopian 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 founder, Joseph Smith, was killed in the Carthage Jail, 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 led most Latter Day Saints out of Illinois in a
mass exodus Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (ex ...
to present-day Utah; 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 port, and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal 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) were signed into law on March 1, 1847.


Civil War and after

During the American Civil War, Illinois ranked fourth in men who served (more than 250,000) in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln'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, 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 army. For several months, both General Grant 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 and Haymarket Riot, 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 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 World's fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and 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, ranking seventh among the 48 states. Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (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. In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the University of Chicago conducted the first sustained
nuclear chain reaction In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...
. In 1957,
Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...
, 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 1, was dedicated near Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near 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 The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ...
and pass a comprehensive criminal code revision that repealed the law against sodomy. The code also abrogated common law crimes and established an
age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally claim ...
of 18. The state's fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document. The first Farm Aid concert was held in 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 Bruce Vincent Rauner (; born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. Prior to his election, he was the chairman of R8 Capital Partners and chai ...
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 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 swamps in the
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
. 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 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
moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...
s.


Geography

Illinois is located in the Midwest region of the United States and is one of the eight states in the 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 Post Vincennes. The Wabash River continues as the eastern/southeastern border with Indiana until the Wabash enters the
Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
. This marks the beginning of Illinois's southern border with Kentucky, which runs along the northern shoreline of the Ohio River. Most of the western border with Missouri and Iowa is the Mississippi River; Kaskaskia is an
exclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
of Illinois, lying west of the Mississippi and reachable only from Missouri. The state's northern border with Wisconsin 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

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 to the Kaskaskia River is known as the American Bottom.


Divisions

Illinois has three major geographical divisions. Northern Illinois is dominated by Chicago metropolitan area, 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, 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's third-largest city and center of the state's fourth largest metropolitan area, sits along Interstates 39 and 90 some northwest of Chicago. The Quad Cities region, located along the Mississippi River 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, 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
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
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; Decatur; Bloomington-Normal; and Champaign- Urbana. The third division is Southern Illinois, comprising the area south of
U.S. Route 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic ...
, including Little Egypt, near the juncture of the Mississippi River and
Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
. Southern Illinois is the site of the ancient city of Cahokia, as well as the site of the first state capital at Kaskaskia, 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, unlike most of the rest of the state), as well as small-scale oil deposits and coal mining. The Illinois suburbs of 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 and 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. 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, which is west of Chicago, and Rockford—which is actually north of Chicago—are sometimes incorrectly considered to be 'downstate'.


Climate

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 southward, has a
humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
(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
. Retrieved April 22, 2006.
The all-time high temperature was , recorded on July 14, 1954, at 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 Mount Carroll is a city in Carroll County, Illinois, United States. It is the Carroll County seat. The population was 1479 at the 2020 census. Due to its elevation and northwesterly location, Mount Carroll is subject to unusually cold winter wea ...
, and confirmed on March 5, 2019. This followed the previous record of recorded on January 5, 1999, near Congerville. Prior to the Mount Carroll record, a temperature of was recorded on January 15, 2009, at 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 On March 18, 1925, one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in recorded history generated at least twelve significant tornadoes and spanned a large portion of the midwestern and southern United States. In all, at least 751 people were ki ...
of 1925 killed 695 people in three states; 613 of the victims died in Illinois.


Demographics

The United States Census Bureau found that the population of Illinois was 12,812,508 in the
2020 United States census The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...
, 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 The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...
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 Midwest region. Chicago, the third-most populous city in the United States, is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area 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 (60.7% Non-Hispanic White), 5.6% 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 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-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 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 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 ancestry, 13.3% had Irish ancestry, 8% had British ancestry, 7.9% had Polish ancestry, 6.4% had Italian ancestry, 4.6% listed themselves as American, 2.4% had
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
ancestry, 2.2% had
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
ancestry, other than Basque, 1.6% had Dutch ancestry, and 1.4% had Norwegian ancestry. Illinois also has large numbers of
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
and Latinos (mostly
Mexicans Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States. The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish language, Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Languages of Mexico, Indigenous linguistic groups ...
and
Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans ( es, Puertorriqueños; or boricuas) are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred t ...
). 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: 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 In demographics, the center of population (or population center) of a region is a geographical point that describes a centerpoint of the region's population. There are several ways of defining such a "center point", leading to different geogr ...
was at , located in Grundy County, northeast of the village of 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 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 third-most populous city in the United States, with its 2020 population of 2,746,388. The 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, a Chicago satellite town that eclipsed 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, located in metropolitan Chicago, is the fourth-largest city in the state, with a population of 147,433. 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 Elgin may refer to: Places Canada * Elgin County, Ontario * Elgin Settlement, a 19th-century community for freed slaves located in present-day North Buxton and South Buxton, Chatham-Kent, Ontario * Elgin, a village in Rideau Lakes, Ontario ...
, 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, with 44,478 people at the 2010 census. It is located in the Illinois portion of Greater St. Louis (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 Bloomington-Normal area with a combined population of over 165,000.


Languages

The official language of Illinois is 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 American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
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 is by far the most widespread, at more than 12% of the total population. A sizeable number of 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 The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The wor ...
with 283,519. Illinois has one of the largest concentrations of Missouri Synod Lutherans in the United States. Illinois played an important role in the early Latter Day Saint movement, with Nauvoo becoming a gathering place for Mormons in the early 1840s. Nauvoo was the location of the
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 ...
, which led to the separation of the Mormon movement into 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 faiths can be found in Illinois. Largely concentrated in the Chicago metropolitan area, followers of the
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
, Baháʼí, and 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 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 principle of the oneness of religions. The Chicago area has a very large Jewish community, particularly in the suburbs of Skokie, Buffalo Grove, 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 Hindus,
Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
s, Jains, and
Buddhists Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
.


Economy

The dollar gross state product for Illinois was estimated to be  billion in 2019. The state's 2019 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 A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
will rise to $15 per hour by 2025, making it one of the highest in the nation.


Agriculture

Illinois's major agricultural outputs are
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, soybeans, hogs, cattle,
dairy product Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in th ...
s, 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
metric tons The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United States ...
) 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
, Illinois Department of Agriculture. Accessed online April 16, 2012
Although Chicago may no longer be " Hog Butcher for the World", the Chicago area remains a global center for 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 wine, and the state is home to two
American viticultural area An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States, providing an official appellation for the mutual benefit of winery, wineries and consumers. Winemakers frequently want their consumers to know abo ...
s. 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 The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (often called "the Chicago Merc", or "the Merc") is a global derivatives marketplace based in Chicago and located at 20 S. Wacker Drive. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, an a ...
, a trading exchange for global
derivatives The derivative of a function is the rate of change of the function's output relative to its input value. Derivative may also refer to: In mathematics and economics *Brzozowski derivative in the theory of formal languages *Formal derivative, an ...
, had begun its life as an agricultural 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. 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 Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesca ...
geologic period. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, 211 billion tons of
bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the seams. It ...
are estimated to lie under the surface, having a total heating value greater than the estimated oil deposits in the
Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
. However, this coal has a high
sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
content, which causes
acid rain Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...
, unless special equipment is used to reduce
sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...
emissions. Many Illinois 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 was chosen as the site for the 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
Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
, 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 Heating oil is any petroleum product or other oil used for heating; a fuel oil. Most commonly, it refers to low viscosity grades of fuel oil used for furnaces or boilers use for home heating and in other buildings. Home heating oil is often a ...
. Illinois is ranked 14th in 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

Nuclear power arguably began in Illinois with the
Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...
, the world's first artificial self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...
in the world's first nuclear reactor, built on the University of Chicago campus. There are six operating
nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
s in Illinois: Braidwood, Byron,
Clinton Clinton is an English toponymic surname, indicating one's ancestors came from English places called Glympton or Glinton.Hanks, P. & Hodges, F. ''A Dictionary of Surnames''. Oxford University Press, 1988 Clinton has frequently been used as a given ...
, Dresden, LaSalle, and 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-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 The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. ...
, 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 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 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, Rail Splitter, EcoGrove, and 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 The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 181 ...
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
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
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 The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 42 ...
corporation in
Decatur, Illinois Decatur ( ) is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois, with a population of 70,522 as of the 2020 Census. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Ce ...
, 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 In business and accounting, net income (also total comprehensive income, net earnings, net profit, bottom line, sales profit, or credit sales) is an entity's income minus cost of goods sold, expenses, depreciation and amortization, interest, a ...
by a 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
budget impasse A budget crisis is an informal name for a situation in which the legislative and the executive in a presidential system deadlock and are unable to pass a budget. In presidential systems, the legislature has the power to pass a budget, but the exe ...
, 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 A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...
: 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, townships, municipalities, school districts, and special taxation districts. The property tax in Illinois is imposed only on
real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or affixe ...
. On May 1, 2019, the Illinois Senate voted to approve a
constitutional amendment A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, t ...
that would have stricken language from the 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, 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 John G. Shedd Aquarium, the
Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
, the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, the Adler Planetarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The modern Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is the largest and most attended
presidential library A presidential library, presidential center, or presidential museum is a facility either created in honor of a former president and containing their papers, or affiliated with a country's presidency. In the United States * The presidential libr ...
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 in Cairo;
Easley Pioneer Museum Easley Pioneer Museum is located at the corner of Mills Street and West Broadway in Ipava, Illinois. (40°21'11.05"N 90°19'37.73"W) The museum is privately owned by a descendant of the original Easley family. The Easley family founded the town o ...
in Ipava; the 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 Brookfield may refer to: Australia *Brookfield, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Brookfield, Victoria Canada * Brookfield, Manitoba, on Manitoba Highway 11 *Brookfield, Newfoundland and Labrador *Brookfield, Nova Scotia *Brookfield, Ontario ...
, contains more than 2,300 animals and covers . The Lincoln Park Zoo is located in
Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...
on Chicago's North Side, approximately north of the 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 in Chicago Magnolia Manor.jpg, Magnolia Manor is a Victorian period historic house museum in Cairo. 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


Music

Illinois is a leader in music education, having hosted the 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 The Eroica Trio is an American piano trio consisting of Erika Nickrenz, piano; Sara Parkins, violin; and Sara Sant'Ambrogio, cello. The trio take their name from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. They have toured and recorded widely, and released six ...
and violinist David Kim. Chicago, in the northeast corner of the state, is a 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 House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...
, 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 and blues music to the city, resulting in Chicago blues and "Chicago-style" Dixieland jazz. Notable blues artists included Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf and both Sonny Boy Williamsons; jazz greats included Nat King Cole,
Gene Ammons Eugene "Jug" Ammons (April 14, 1925 – August 6, 1974), also known as "The Boss", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. The son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons is remembered for his accessible music, steeped in soul and ...
,
Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His co ...
, and Bud Freeman. Chicago is also well known for its soul music. In the early 1930s,
Gospel music Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...
began to gain popularity in Chicago due to Thomas A. Dorsey's contributions at Pilgrim Baptist Church. In the 1980s and 1990s, heavy rock, punk, and hip hop also became popular in Chicago. Orchestras in Chicago include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the
Chicago Sinfonietta The Chicago Sinfonietta is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is nationally and internationally acclaimed as a cultural leader and a powerful advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion and is renowned for its groundbreaking, ...
.


Movies

John Hughes, who moved from Grosse Pointe to Northbrook, based many films of his in 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 sports leagues have teams headquartered in Chicago. *Two Major League Baseball teams are located in the state. The
Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
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 Guaranteed Rate Field is a baseball stadium located on the South Side, Chicago, South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It serves as the home stadium of the Chicago White Sox, one of the city's two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, and i ...
. *The
Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...
football team has won nine total NFL Championships, the last occurring in Super Bowl XX on January 26, 1986. *The Chicago Bulls of the
NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
is one of the most recognized
basketball teams Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
in the world, largely as a result of the efforts of
Michael Jordan Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the g ...
, who led the team to six NBA championships in eight seasons in the 1990s. *The Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL began playing in
1926 Events January * January 3 – Theodoros Pangalos declares himself dictator in Greece. * January 8 **Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Hejaz. ** Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuy ascends the throne, the last monarch of V ...
, and became a member of the
Original Six The Original Six () are the teams that comprised the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1942 and 1967. The six teams are the Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs ...
once the NHL dropped to that number of teams during World War II. The Blackhawks have won six
Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...
s, most recently in
2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
. * Chicago Fire FC is a member of 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 Bridgeview is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located approximately southwest of the Chicago Loop. As of the 2020 census, the village population was 17,027. History The earliest settlement in Bridgeview occurred in the ...
, 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 The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
, 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 Wintrust Arena at McCormick Square, previously referred to as DePaul Arena or McCormick Place Events Center, is a 10,387-seat sports venue in the Near South Side community area of Chicago that opened in 2017. It is the current home court for ...
in Chicago. *The Chicago Bandits of the NPF, a women's softball league; have won four league titles, most recently in 2016. They play at
Parkway Bank Sports Complex Parkway Bank Sports Complex, also known as the Ballpark at Rosemont, is an outdoor baseball park used for fastpitch softball and baseball located in the American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the Uni ...
in Rosemont, Illinois in the Chicago area.


Minor league sports

Many
minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...
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 AHL team playing in the suburb of
Rosemont Rosemont may refer to: * Rosemont (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse * ''Rosemont'', a 2015 film Places In Australia * Rosemont (Woollahra), located in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra and listed on the NSW State Heritage Register In Canada ...
*The Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League in Sauget, Illinois *The Kane County Cougars of the American Association *The Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League *The Peoria Chiefs of the Midwest League *The Peoria Rivermen are an 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 The Southern Illinois Miners were a professional baseball team based in Marion, Illinois. The Miners were members of the West Division of the independent Frontier League. From 2007 to 2021, the Miners played their home games at Rent One Park. ...
based out of Marion in the Frontier League *The Windy City Bulls, playing in the Chicago suburb of 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 Game The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2. The Rose ...
s, 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 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 The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...
(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 The Eastern Illinois Panthers are the intercollegiate athletic programs of Eastern Illinois University (EIU) located in Charleston, Illinois, United States. The Panthers athletic program is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) and compe ...
(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 Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...
. 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 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 1975–1984 and Major Indoor Soccer League *The Chicago Cougars, World Hockey Association 1972–1975 *The Chicago Rockers,
Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) (originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association) was a men's professional basketball m ...
*The
Chicago Skyliners (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
,
American Basketball Association The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major men's professional basketball league from 1967 to 1976. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger, American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger in 1976, ...
2000–01 *The
Chicago Bruisers The Chicago Bruisers were a professional arena football team based in Rosemont, Illinois. They were founded in 1987 as a charter member of the Arena Football League (AFL). They played their home games at Rosemont Horizon. History Founding (1987) ...
, Arena Football League 1987–1989 *The Chicago Power, National Professional Soccer League 1984–2001 *The Chicago Blaze,
National Women's Basketball League The National Women's Basketball League, often abbreviated to the NWBL, was an organization governing professional basketball leagues for women in the United States. The league was founded in 1997 and began play in the Fall of that year. The league ...
*The 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 baseball league, 1910–1952 *The Chicago Bruins of the National Basketball League, 1939–1942 *The Chicago Studebaker Flyers of the NBL, 1942–43 *The
Chicago American Gears The Chicago American Gears were a National Basketball League (NBL) team who played from 1944 to 1947. The team also played in the Professional Basketball League of America (PBLA) in 1947–48 after leaving the NBL. About They are notable in profe ...
of the NBL, 1944–1947 *The Chicago Stags of the
Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA absorbed most of National Basketball League (NBL) and rebranded as the National Ba ...
, 1946–1950 *The
Chicago Majors The Chicago Majors was a basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois, that was a member of the American Basketball League from 1961 to 1963. History The American Basketball League played one full season, 1961–1962, and part of the next season ...
of the American Basketball League, 1961–1963 *The Chicago Express of the ECHL *The Chicago Enforcers of the XFL pro football league *The Chicago Fire,
World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
1974 *The Chicago Winds,
World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
1975 *The Chicago Hustle, Women's Professional Basketball League 1978–1981 *The Chicago Mustangs, North American Soccer League 1966–1967 *The
Chicago Rush The Chicago Rush were a professional arena football team based in Rosemont, Illinois Rosemont is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Located immediately northwest of Chicago, as of the 2010 census it had a population of 4,20 ...
, Arena Football League 2001–2013 *The Chicago Storm, American Professional Slo-Pitch League (APSPL), 1977-1978 *The Chicago Nationwide Advertising, North American Softball League (NASL), 1980


=Relocated teams

= The NFL's
Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...
, who currently play in the Phoenix suburb of
Glendale, Arizona Glendale () is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, located approximately northwest of Downtown Phoenix. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 248,325. History In the la ...
, played in Chicago as the Chicago Cardinals, until moving to 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 Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...
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 The Southern Illinois Miners were a professional baseball team based in Marion, Illinois. The Miners were members of the West Division of the independent Frontier League. From 2007 to 2021, the Miners played their home games at Rent One Park. ...
, Gateway Grizzlies, Joliet Slammers and Windy City ThunderBolts all belong to the independent Frontier League. Additionally, the Kane County Cougars play in the American Association and the
Lake County Fielders The Lake County Fielders were an American professional minor league baseball team based in Zion, Illinois, located in Lake County in the northern reaches of the Chicago area. The Fielders were owned by Grand Slam Sports & Entertainment, LLC, ba ...
were members of the former 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 plays in the SPHL.


Motor racing

Motor racing oval tracks at the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, the Chicago Motor Speedway in Cicero and the Gateway International Raceway in Madison, near St. Louis, have hosted NASCAR,
CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed tr ...
, and IRL races, whereas the
Sports Car Club of America The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) is a non-profit American automobile club and sanctioning body supporting road racing, rallying, and autocross in the United States. Formed in 1944, it runs many programs for both amateur and professional r ...
, among other national and regional
road racing Road racing is a form of motorsport racing held on a paved road surface. The races can be held either on a closed circuit or on a street circuit utilizing temporarily closed public roads. Originally, road races were held almost entirely on publ ...
clubs, have visited the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, the
Blackhawk Farms Raceway Blackhawk Farms is a private circuit racetrack located outside South Beloit, Illinois, on a farm on the border between Wisconsin and Illinois. Blackhawk Farms was established in 1967, about a decade after nearby Road America. History Blackh ...
in
South Beloit South Beloit, is a city located in Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. It is part of the Rockford Metropolitan Area, but it is also a suburban extension of Beloit, Wisconsin. South Beloit,is directly along the border of smaller cities and towns no ...
and the former Meadowdale International Raceway in
Carpentersville Carpentersville is a village in Kane County, Illinois, United States. The population was 37,983 at the 2020 census. Geography Carpentersville is located at (42.121156, -88.274679). According to the 2010 census, Carpentersville has a total ...
. Illinois also has several 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, Medinah,
Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...
,
Cog Hill A cog is a tooth of a gear or cogwheel or the gear itself. Cog, COG, CoG, or The Cog may also refer to: Science and engineering * Rear sprocket of a bicycle * Cog (ship), a type of sailboat from the 10th century onward * Center of gravity, a s ...
, and Conway Farms, which have often hosted the BMW Championship, Western Open, and Women's Western Open. Also, the state has hosted 13 editions of the 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 The 11th Solheim Cup Matches were held August 21–23, 2009 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois, west of Chicago. The biennial matches are a three-day team competition for professional female golfers, pitting the 12 best players born ...
(at Rich Harvest Farms), and the
2012 Ryder Cup The 39th Ryder Cup was held September 28–30, 2012, in the United States at the Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago. This was the first time that the Ryder Cup was held in Illinois. Europe went into the comp ...
(at Medinah). The
John Deere Classic The John Deere Classic is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour. It is played annually in July, usually the week before The Open Championship, at TPC Deere Run in the Quad Cities community of Silvis, Illinois. History The tournament bega ...
is a regular PGA Tour event played in the Quad Cities since 1971, whereas the Encompass Championship is a
Champions Tour PGA Tour Champions (formerly the Senior PGA Tour and the Champions Tour) is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour. History and format The Senior PGA Championship, founded in 1937, was for many years ...
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 National Heritage Corridor near Lockport, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, the
Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail The Mormon Trail is the long route from Illinois to Utah that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled for 3 months. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon ...
, the 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 The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 181 ...
is the state legislature, composed of the 118-member
Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...
and the 59-member
Illinois Senate The Illinois Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state, State of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adop ...
. The members of the General Assembly are elected at the beginning of each even-numbered year. The ''
Illinois Compiled Statutes The ''Illinois Compiled Statutes'' (ILCS) are the codified statutes of a general and permanent nature of Illinois. The compilation organizes the general Acts of Illinois into 67 chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas. The ILCS took effect i ...
'' (ILCS) are the 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,
Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
,
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
, Secretary of State,
Comptroller A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executi ...
, and 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 The judiciary of Illinois is the unified court system of Illinois responsible for applying the Constitution and law of Illinois. It consists of the Supreme Court, the Appellate Court, and circuit courts. The Supreme Court oversees the administr ...
is the unified court system of Illinois. It consists of the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, Appellate Court, and 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 Democratic stronghold. Historically, Illinois was a political swing state, with near-parity existing between the Republican and the
Democratic Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...
parties. However, in recent elections, the Democratic Party has gained ground, and Illinois has come to be seen as a solid "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. From
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until
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
, 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
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and
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
. 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 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 Bruce Vincent Rauner (; born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. Prior to his election, he was the chairman of R8 Capital Partners and chai ...
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 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 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, Ulysses S. Grant, and most recently Barack Obama. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, 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 was born in Ohio 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 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, 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. *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 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.


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

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

*
Illinois: State Resource Guide, from the Library of Congress
*
Illinois Office of TourismIllinois - 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
{{coord, 40, -89, dim:300000_region:US-IL_type:adm1st, name=State of Illinois, display=title 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