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Illinois (/ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ/ ^ⓘ IL-in-OY) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-most land area. Its largest urban areas include Chicago and the Metro East of Greater St. Louis, as well as Peoria, Rockford, Champaign–Urbana, and Springfield, the state's capital.

Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural 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. Chicago has been the nation's railroad hub since the 1860s, and its O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a microcosm of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase Will it play in Peoria?.

Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois 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, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. 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. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. 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.

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The BP Pedestrian Bridge is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Daley Bicentennial Plaza with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, it opened along with the rest of Millennium Park on July 16, 2004. Gehry had been courted by the city to design the bridge and the neighboring Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and eventually agreed to do so after the Pritzker family funded the Pavilion.

The pedestrian bridge serves as a noise barrier for traffic sounds from Columbus Drive. It is a connecting link between Millennium Park and destinations to the east, such as the nearby lakefront, other parts of Grant Park and a parking garage. BP Bridge uses a concealed box girder design with a concrete base, and its deck is covered by hardwood floor boards. It is designed without handrails, using stainless steel parapets instead. The total length is 935 feet (285 m), with a five percent slope on its inclined surfaces that makes it barrier free and accessible to all. Although the bridge closes in winter because ice cannot be safely removed from its wooden walkway, it has received favorable reviews for its design and aesthetics. (Read more...)

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Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak in the Sauk language, (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a war leader of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. He earned his status as a war chief or captain by leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Black Hawk was born in 1767 in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River (present-day Rock Island, Illinois). During the War of 1812, Black Hawk had fought on the side of the British against the U.S., hoping to push white American settlers away from Sauk territory. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors, known as the British Band, against European-American settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he was captured by U.S. forces and taken to the eastern United States. Shortly before being released from custody, Black Hawk told his story to an interpreter; aided also by a newspaper reporter, he published Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation.... Black Hawk died in 1838 in what is now southeastern Iowa. He has been honored by an enduring legacy: his book, many eponyms, and other tributes. (Read more...)

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Did you know...

... that although Olga Hartman believed that her basic research on marine worms had no practical value, it was applied to experimental studies of oysters?
... that Jack Washburn was called "Cinderella Boy" for winning a starring role in his first Broadway show?

... that four course records were broken during the 2023 Chicago Marathon (women's winner pictured)?
... that the restaurant CosMc's is named after a character from McDonaldland?
... that Salty Parker, who spent 60 years in organized baseball, described his lifelong love of the game as "a beautiful disease"?
... that authorities said the killing of Wadea al-Fayoume in Illinois was a response to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war?

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Selected images

Image 1A mill belonging to the grain company Bunge Lauhoff in downtown Danville. The facility was built in 1947.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 2Magnolia Manor in Cairo, built by businessman Charles A. Galigher in 1869.
Photo credit: MuZemike (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 3The Mendota Hills Wind Farm in Lee County. Built in 2003 by Navitas Energy, Mendota Hills was the first utility scale wind farm in Illinois.
Photo credit: Dori (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 4Chris Young winding up for a four-seam fastball in the bullpen while warming up before a 2007 game. Behind Young can be seen the Wrigley Field scoreboard and bleachers.
Image credit: TonyTheTiger (photographer) and Jjron (editing) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 5Shore of Lake Michigan at Illinois Beach State Park in Lake County.
Image credit: Yinan Chen (photographer), Slick (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 6Lithograph advertisement for the CH&D Railway showing the interior of a Pullman dining car, 1894, with a Pullman porter serving two men at a table.
Image credit: Strobridge & Co. (lithographers), Library of Congress (digital file), Mu (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 7The water tower and barracks complex at Fort Sheridan in 1898. The principal buildings of the fort were built between 1889 and 1910 by the firm Holabird & Roche.
Image credit: Detroit Photographic Co.; Bathgems (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 8Photograph of suffragette, social worker, philosopher, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams in 1924 or 1926.
Image credit: Bain News Service (photograph), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 9A panoramic view of corn fields near Royal in Champaign County.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 10A tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) in Urbana.
Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 11Map of the Multilevel streets in Chicago.
Image credit: User:SPUI (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 12"Let Go–But Stand By:" Photograph of Frances Willard from her 1895 book, A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle. The new safety bicycle became associated with women's emancipation.
Image credit: Frances E. Willard (book author), Woman's Temperance Publishing Association and Fleming H. Revell Co. (publishers), HathiTrust (digitization), Dennis Bratland (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 13Plants of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Will County. Tallgrass prairie once covered around two-thirds of Illinois. Midewin is the only federal tallgrass prairie preserve east of the Mississippi River.
Photo credit: User:Alanscottwalker (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 14American Gothic, a 1930 painting by Grant Wood, has been in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago since shortly after its creation. The painting is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in popular culture.
Image credit: Grant Wood (painter), Google Art Project (digital file), DcoetzeeBot (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 15Downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan (view from the Willis Tower).
Photo credit: Adrian104 (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 16Vandalia State House, the former state capitol. It was built in 1836 and is maintained by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
Photo credit: Art davis (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 17Architectural details of Altgeld Hall at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Designed by UIUC professors Nathan Ricker and James McLaren White, the building is one of Altgeld's castles.
Image credit: Kevin Dooley (photographer), Smallbones (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 18A great blue heron (Ardea herodias) flying with nesting material in Illinois. There is a colony of about twenty heron nests in trees nearby.
Image credit: PhotoBobil (photographer), Snowmanradio (upload), PetarM (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 19A flowstone formation inside Chimney Dome, part of Illinois Caverns in Monroe County. The cave is formed in limestone and dolomite by water dissolution and features stalactites, stalagmites, rimstone dams, flowstone, and soda straws.
Photo credit: A. Frierdich (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 20A mural by Chicago artist Louis Grell in the Springfield Amtrak station. The mural depicts a quote by Abraham Lincoln, a map of the post-1947 Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and the seals of the seven states that the railroad served.
Image credit: Louis Grell (painter), RI-Bill (photographer) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 21The LaSalle Rail Bridge and Abraham Lincoln Memorial Bridge over the Illinois River. The LaSalle Bridge was built by the Illinois Central Railroad in 1893, and the Lincoln Bridge was built in 1987 with the construction of Interstate 39.
Image credit: Joseph Norton and Ronald Frazier (photographers), Alanscottwalker (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 22The Chicago Theatre. Designed by the firm Rapp and Rapp, it was the flagship theater for Balaban and Katz group.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 23The Twenty Acre Dairy Barn, first of the experimental University of Illinois round barns. The barn was designed by James M. White and Kell & Bernard for the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1908
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 24A Howard bound Red Line train temporarily rerouted to elevated tracks at Randolph station, Chicago.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 25A poster for the Century of Progress World's Fair showing exhibition buildings with boats in the foreground..
Image credit: Weimer Pursell (artist); Neely Printing Co., Chicago (silkscreen print); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 26The Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the world's tallest building from 1973 to 2004. The tower's innovative bundled tube structure was designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan.
Photo credit: Soakologist (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 27Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in downtown Chicago. The complex, designed by Bertrand Goldberg and completed in 1964, consists of two corncob-shaped 179 m, 65-story towers.
Photo credit: Diego Delso (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 28The coat of arms of Illinois as illustrated in the 1876 book State Arms of the Union by Louis Prang.
Image credit: Henry Mitchell (illustrator), Louis Prang & Co. (lithographer and publisher), Godot13 (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 29The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, where Abraham Lincoln is buried alongside Mary Todd Lincoln and three of their sons. The tomb, designed by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, was completed in 1874.
Photo credit: David Jones (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 30Photograph of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Black Betsy in hand, in 1913 with the Cleveland Naps, prior to his seasons with the Chicago White Sox.
Image credit: Charles M. Conlon (photographer), Mears Auctions (digital file), Scewing (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 31Hohenbuehelia mastrucata mushroom growing in Busse Woods, Elk Grove Village.
Image credit: Rocky Houghtby (photographer), Leoboudv (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 32The "Chunkey Player" is an 8.5 inch (22 cm) high by 5.5 inch (14 cm) wide Missouri flint clay statuette depicting a player of the ancient Native American game of chunkey. Believed to have been originally crafted at or near the Cahokia site in Illinois, it was found in Muskogee County, Oklahoma.
Photo credit: User:TimVickers (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 33A tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) in Shawnee National Forest.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 34The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The building was designed by Charles B. Atwood for D. H. Burnham & Company to house exhibits for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Image credit: zooey (photographer), Jasenlee~commonswiki (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 35The Campana Factory in Batavia. It was built in 1936 to serve as a factory for The Campana Company, which produced Italian Balm, the most popular hand lotion in the United States during the Great Depression. The Streamline Moderne and Bauhaus design by Frank D. Chase features many innovative technologies, such as air conditioning.
Photo credit: User:MrPanyGoff (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 36The McFarland Carillon is a 185-foot bell tower with 49 bells at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The tower was built in 2008-09 and was designed by Fred Guyton of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets.
Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 37A street view of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park. Wright built the house in 1889 and added the Studio and Connecting Corridor in 1898. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has restored the property to its appearance in 1909, the last year the architect lived there with his family.
Photo credit: User:Banewson (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 38A Canada goose (Branta canadensis) swimming in Palatine.
Photo credit: Joe Ravi (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 39The dome of the Illinois State Capitol. Designed by architects Cochrane and Garnsey, the dome's interior features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze and illustrating scenes from Illinois history. Stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the State Seal, appear in the oculus. Ground was first broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1869, and it was completed twenty years later.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 40"The Great Presidential Puzzle": This chromolithograph cartoon about the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago shows Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwarts of the Republican Party, playing a puzzle game. All blocks in the puzzle are the heads of the potential Republican presidential candidates. The cartoon parodies the famous 15 puzzle.
Image credit: Mayer, Merkel, & Ottmann (lithographers); James Albert Wales (artist); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 41"Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate for the presidency, 1860," a lithograph by Leopold Grozelier, et al. According to the Library of Congress, "Thomas Hicks painted a portrait of Lincoln at his office in Springfield specifically for this lithograph."
Image credit: Thomas Hicks (painter), Leopold Grozelier (lithographer), W. William Schaus (publisher), J.H. Bufford's Lith. (printer), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 42Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield. The house was built for the Rev. Charles Dresser in 1839. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln purchased it in 1844, later adding a second story.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 43The Cairo Mississippi River Bridge near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at Cairo, the lowest elevation in the state. The bridge was built in 1929 by the American Bridge Company and the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co.
Image credit: Nick Jordan (photographer), Fredddie (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 44Photograph of Rockford pilot Elizabeth L. Gardner with the WASPs at Harlingen Army Air Field, Texas.
Image credit: U.S. Dept. of the Air Force (photograph); National Archives Catalog (digital file); Junkyardsparkle, Hohum, Bammesk (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 45An illustration of Kincaid Mounds, a city of the Mississippian culture, at its height. The city was located near the Ohio River on the boundary of present day Massac and Pope Counties.
Image credit: H. Rowe (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 46Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844. This unusual black-and-white lithograph has a second yellow-brown layer on top of it.
Image credit: G.W. Fasel (painter); Charles G. Crehen (lithographer); Nagel & Weingaertner, N.Y. (publishers); Library of Congress (digital file); Adam Cuerden (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 47The Old State Capitol in Springfield. Designed by John F. Rague in a Greek Revival style and completed in 1840, the building housed the Illinois General Assembly until 1876.
Photo credit: Agriculture (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 48Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive shops in Chicago, December 1942.
Image credit: Jack Delano, Farm Security Administration (photographer); Library of Congress (digital file); Trialsanderrors and Yann (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 49A view of Lake Falls in Matthiessen State Park in La Salle County near Oglesby. The park's stream begins with the Lake Falls and flows into the Vermillion River.
Photo credit: Cspayer (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 50The Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest. The unglaciated gray sandstone of the wilderness area is more rugged than most of Illinois.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 51This 1941 photograph shows the maze of livestock pens and walkways at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago.
Image credit: John Vachon, Farm Security Administration (photographer), Darwinek (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 52Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 1926, a Railway Post Office preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
Photo credit: Sean Lamb (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 53A pyrite disc, also called a "miner's dollar," from a coal mine in Sparta.
Image credit: Cccefalon (photographer and digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 54Symbols of many religions are carved in concrete relief on the exterior of the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette. The temple was designed by the architect Louis Bourgeois and constructed between 1921 and 1953.
Image credit: ctot_not_def (photographer), Tobias Vetter (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 55A illustration of the Upper Bluff Lake Dancing Figures repoussé copper plate, an artifact of the Mississippian culture found at the Saddle Site in Union County, Illinois.
Image credit: H. Rowe (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)

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Recent news

COVID-19 pandemic in Illinois

November 17, 2021:
The John Deere strike (pictured) ends after more than a month when workers approve a third contract offer.
November 14, 2021: The last department store in Illinois belonging to Hoffman Estates-based Sears closes in Woodfield Mall.
November 4, 2021: J. B. Pritzker speaks alongside Governors David Ige, Kate Brown, and Jay Inslee at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
October 26, 2021: Workers for Chicago-based McDonald's in ten cities go on strike to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment in the workplace.
October 18, 2021: The Chicago Police Department reports that more than a third of its officers have failed to meet a deadline for reporting whether they have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
October 17, 2021: The Chicago Sky win the 2021 WNBA Finals, defeating the Phoenix Mercury in four games to win the team's first-ever championship.
October 14, 2021: 10,000 UAW workers go on strike (pictured) in Midwestern plants of Moline-based John Deere.
October 12, 2021: The Chicago White Sox lose the American League Division Series to Houston in four games.
October 11, 2021: David Card, former professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.

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