Illinois

Illinois ( IL[email protected] NoY is a state located in the Midwestern United States. Its capital city is Chicago. Other major metropolitan areas include Peoria, Rockford, Metro East (of Greater St. Louis), and Peoria. 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.

With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and immense farmland in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a highly diverse economy. Owing to its central location and geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago enjoys 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. The state’s borders also include the Mississippi, Ohio, Wabash and Wabash Rivers. For decades, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport was one of the ten busiest airports in the world. Described as a microcosm of the entire United States, Illinois has long been considered a bellwether in social, cultural, and political terms.

Illinois, which is now Illinois, was inhabited for thousands upon thousands of years by many indigenous cultures, including the Cahokia region’s advanced civilization. The French were the first Europeans in Illinois. They settled near the Mississippi River in 17th century. This was part of the sprawling colony New France. After the American independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving via the Ohio River from Kentucky. The population grew from the south to the 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 south-western Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoian 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. The state became a major transportation hub for the nation in the mid-19th century thanks to the Illinois and Michigan Canal and its sprawling railroad network.