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(''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 =
State State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
, subdivision_type2 =
Counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
, subdivision_name1 = Illinois , subdivision_name2 = Cook and DuPage , established_title = Settled , established_date = , established_title2 = Incorporated (city) , established_date2 = , founder = Jean Baptiste Point du Sable , government_type = Mayor–council , governing_body = Chicago City Council , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Lori Lightfoot ( D) , leader_title1 = City Clerk , leader_name1 = Anna Valencia ( D) , unit_pref = Imperial , area_footnotes = , area_total_sq_mi = 234.53 , area_total_km2 = 607.44 , area_land_sq_mi = 227.73 , area_land_km2 = 589.82 , area_water_sq_mi = 6.80 , area_water_km2 = 17.62 , elevation_footnotes = ''(mean)'' , elevation_m = , elevation_ft = 597.18 , elevation_min_m = , elevation_min_ft = 578 , elevation_max_footnotes =
''– near Blue Island'' , elevation_min_footnotes =
''– at Lake Michigan'' , population_total = 2746388 , population_as_of =
2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
, population_footnotes = , population_rank = , population_density_sq_mi = 12059.84 , population_density_km2 = 4656.33 , population_metro_footnotes = , population_metro = 9618502 ( 3rd) , population_demonym = Chicagoan , population_note = , postal_code_type = ZIP Code prefixes , postal_code = 606xx, 607xx, 608xx , area_code = 312 /872, 773 /872 , area_code_type = Area codes , website = , footnotes = , etymology = mia, shikaakwa ( or ) , pushpin_label = Chicago , leader_title2 =
City Treasurer The municipal treasurer is a position of responsibility for a municipality according to the locally prevailing laws. The treasurer of a public agency is elected Melissa Conyears-Ervin ( D) , elevation_max_m = , elevation_max_ft = 672 , utc_offset = −06:00 , timezone_DST = CDT , utc_offset_DST = −05:00 , blank_name = FIPS code , blank_info = , blank1_name =
GNIS The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...
feature ID , blank1_info = , blank_name_sec2 = International airports , blank_info_sec2 = , blank1_name_sec2 = Commuter rail , blank1_info_sec2 = , blank2_name_sec2 = Rapid transit , blank2_info_sec2 = , short_description = City in Illinois, United States , pop_est_as_of = , pop_est_footnotes = , population_est = , nickname = Full list , timezone1 = CST , established_title1 = , established_date1 = Chicago ( , ) is the most populous city in the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of Illinois and the third-most populous in the United States, after
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census, it is also the most populous city in the Midwest. As the seat of
Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
(the second-most populous U.S. county), the city is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, one of the largest in the world. On the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century; by 1860, Chicago was the youngest U.S. city to exceed a population of 100,000. The Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow to 503,000 by 1880 and then doubled to more than a million within the decade. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (such as, Chicago School architecture, the development of the
City Beautiful Movement The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the ...
, and the steel-framed skyscraper). Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized
futures contract In finance, a futures contract (sometimes called a futures) is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The asset ...
s, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several ''Fortune'' 500 companies, including Archer Daniels Midland,
Conagra Brands Conagra Brands, Inc. (formerly ConAgra Foods) is an American consumer packaged goods holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Conagra makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, ...
,
Exelon Exelon Corporation is an American Fortune 100 energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and incorporated in Pennsylvania. It generates revenues of approximately $33.5 billion and employs approximately 33,400 people. Exelon is the largest ...
, JLL, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International,
Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions, Inc., is an American video equipment, telecommunications equipment, software, systems and services provider that succeeded Motorola, Inc., following the spinoff of the mobile phone division into Motorola Mobility in 2011. Th ...
,
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, and
United Airlines Holdings United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (formerly known as United Continental Holdings, Inc., UAL Corporation, Allegis Corporation and founded originally as UAL, Inc.) is a publicly traded airline holding company headquartered in the Willis Tower in Chica ...
. Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park,
Navy Pier Navy Pier is a pier on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Navy Pier encompasses over of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants, family ...
, the
Magnificent Mile The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is an upscale section of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, running from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side. The district is located within downtown, and one block ...
, the Art Institute of Chicago,
Museum Campus Museum Campus is a park in Chicago that sits alongside Lake Michigan in Grant Park and encompasses five of the city's most notable attractions: the Adler Planetarium, America's first planetarium; the Shedd Aquarium; the Field Museum of Natura ...
, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and
Lincoln Park Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo, also known as Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens, is a zoo in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois. The zoo was founded in 1868, making it the fourth oldest zoo in North America. It is also one of a few free admission zoos in the Unit ...
. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts,
literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, film, theater, comedy (especially
improvisational comedy Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...
), food, dance (including modern dance and jazz troupes and the Joffrey Ballet), and music (particularly
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is also the location of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the
Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria ...
. Of the area's colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.


Etymology and nicknames

The name ''Chicago'' is derived from a French rendering of the
indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
Miami-Illinois word for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as '' Allium tricoccum'' and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687: The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.


History


Beginnings

In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region. The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the
French colony The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that exist ...
of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago". In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the
Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples ...
. In 1803, the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt. After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.


19th century

On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city. As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called
futures contract In finance, a futures contract (sometimes called a futures) is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The asset ...
s. In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator
Stephen Douglas Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which wa ...
, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan,
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called, the
Wigwam A wigwam, wickiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam (Ojibwe, in syllabics: ) is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term ''wickiup' ...
. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
. To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source. The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the
Eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...
. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans,
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population). Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the
Haymarket affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square i ...
on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the
Pullman Strike The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chi ...
. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work. During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and
yellow fever Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. ...
were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states. The city established many large, well-landscaped
municipal parks An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to resi ...
, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago. In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American
time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...
s. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the
Midway Plaisance The Midway Plaisance, known locally as the Midway, is a public park on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joining Washington Park at its west end and Jackson Park ...
, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.


20th and 21st centuries


1900 to 1939

During
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the
Chicago Black Renaissance The Chicago Black Renaissance (also known as the Black Chicago Renaissance) was a creative movement that blossomed out of the Chicago Black Belt on the city's South Side and spanned the 1930s and 1940s before a transformation in art and cultur ...
, part of the
New Negro Movement The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred. The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw
gangsters A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
, including Al Capone,
Dion O'Banion Charles Dean O'Banion (July 8, 1892 – November 10, 1924) was an American mobster who was the main rival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone during the brutal Chicago bootlegging wars of the 1920s. The newspapers of his day made him better known a ...
,
Bugs Moran George Clarence "Bugs" Moran (; Adelard Leo Cunin; August 21, 1893 – February 25, 1957) was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned dow ...
and
Tony Accardo Anthony Joseph Accardo (; born Antonino Leonardo Accardo, ; April 28, 1906 – May 22, 1992), also known as "Joe Batters" and "Big Tuna", was an American longtime mobster. In a criminal career that spanned eight decades, he rose from small-time ho ...
battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the
Prohibition era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...
. Chicago was the location of the infamous
St. Valentine's Day Massacre The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago garage on the morning of February 1 ...
in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran. Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the
Society for Human Rights The Society for Human Rights was an American LGBT rights organization established in Chicago in 1924. Society founder Henry Gerber was inspired to create it by the work of German doctor Magnus Hirschfeld and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee ...
. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, ''
Friendship and Freedom ''Friendship and Freedom'', published from 1924 to 1925, was a short-lived American gay-interest newsletter published by the Chicago-based Society for Human Rights (SHR), the first recognized homosexual rights organization in the United States. Hen ...
''. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband. The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with
Unemployed Councils The Unemployed Councils of the USA (UC) was a mass organization of the Communist Party, USA established in 1930 in an effort to organize and mobilize unemployed workers to advance party policy goals in preparation for an anticipated final confli ...
contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the
Memorial Day massacre of 1937 In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the Little Steel strike in the United States. Background The incident aro ...
in the neighborhood of East Side. In 1933, Chicago Mayor
Anton Cermak Anton Joseph Cermak ( cs, Antonín Josef Čermák, ; May 9, 1873 – March 6, 1933) was an American politician who served as the 44th mayor of Chicago, Illinois from April 7, 1931 until his death on March 6, 1933. He was killed by an assassin, ...
was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the
Century of Progress A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...
International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.


1940 to 1979

During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards. On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
in 1945. Mayor
Richard J. Daley Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the Mayor of Chicago from 1955 and the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee from 1953 until his death. He has been cal ...
, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County. By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966,
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and Albert Raby led the
Chicago Freedom Movement The Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago open housing movement, was led by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel and Al Raby. It was supported by the Chicago-based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) and the Sou ...
, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders. Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous
1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus maki ...
, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago,
McCormick Place McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America. It consists of four interconnected buildings and one indoor arena sited on and near the shore of Lake Michigan, about south of downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. McCorm ...
, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979,
Jane Byrne Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke; May 24, 1933November 14, 2014) was an American politician who was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major city in the United States. She served as the 50th Mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April ...
, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.


1980 to present

In 1983,
Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as may ...
became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman
Eugene Sawyer Eugene Sawyer Jr. (September 3, 1934January 19, 2008) was an American businessman, educator, and politician. Sawyer was selected as the 53rd Mayor of Chicago, Illinois after the sudden death of then–mayor Harold Washington, serving from Decemb ...
, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing
Meigs Field Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport (pronounced , formerly ) was a single-runway airport in Chicago that was in operation from December 1948 until March 2003 on Northerly Island, an artificial peninsula on Lake Michigan. The airport sat adjacent to ...
in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term. In 1992, a construction accident near the
Kinzie Street Bridge The Kinzie Street Bridge is a single-leaf bascule bridge built in 1909 that spans the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. Incidents In April 1992, rehabilitation work on the pilings for the bridge damaged a freight tunn ...
produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion. On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.


Geography


Topography

Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the
Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
and the
Great Lakes region The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge
lake freighter Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that operate on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Since the late 19th century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of ma ...
s use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer. When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall
grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also ref ...
of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side. While the
Chicago Loop The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for
Navy Pier Navy Pier is a pier on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Navy Pier encompasses over of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants, family ...
,
Northerly Island Northerly Island is a man-made peninsula along Chicago's Lake Michigan lakefront. The site of the Adler Planetarium, Northerly Island connects to the mainland through a narrow isthmus along Solidarity Drive. This street is dominated by Neoclass ...
, the
Museum Campus Museum Campus is a park in Chicago that sits alongside Lake Michigan in Grant Park and encompasses five of the city's most notable attractions: the Adler Planetarium, America's first planetarium; the Shedd Aquarium; the Field Museum of Natura ...
, and large portions of the
McCormick Place McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America. It consists of four interconnected buildings and one indoor arena sited on and near the shore of Lake Michigan, about south of downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. McCorm ...
Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront. An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'', which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of
Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake,
Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian regional airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., ...
and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The
Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit organization promoting business in the Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United ...
defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.


Communities

Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago. In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.


Streetscape

Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the
Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...
section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of
Ogden Avenue Ogden Avenue is a street extending from the Near West Side of Chicago to Montgomery, Illinois. It was named for William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago. The street follows the route of the Southwestern Plank Road, which opened in 1848 acr ...
was ever constructed. In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The
City Beautiful movement The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the ...
inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.


Architecture

The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest. Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after
One World Trade Center One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Mer ...
, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building,
860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments 86 may refer to: * 86 (number), a natural number * 86 (term), a slang term for getting rid of something Dates * 86 BC, a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar * AD 86, a common year of the Julian calendar * 1986, a common year of the Gregorian ...
by
Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...
. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
,
Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...
, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and
Helmut Jahn Helmut Jahn (January 4, 1940 – May 8, 2021) was a German-American architect, known for projects such as the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Thompson Center in Chicago; One Liber ...
. The Merchandise Mart, once first on the
list of largest buildings in the world Buildings around the world listed by usable space (volume), footprint (area), and floor space (area) comprise single structures that are suitable for continuous human occupancy. There are, however, some exceptions, including factories and wareho ...
, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the
John Hancock Center The John Hancock Center is a 100- story, 1,128-foot supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the building was officially renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in 2018. The skyscraper was designed ...
.
Industrial district Industrial district concept was initially used by Alfred Marshall to describe some aspects of the industrial organisation of nations. Industrial district (ID) is a place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary indus ...
s, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the
Northwest Indiana Northwest Indiana, nicknamed The Region after the Calumet Region, comprises Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton and Jasper counties in Indiana. This region neighbors Lake Michigan and is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. According to the 2020 ...
area are clustered. Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The
Robie House The Frederick C. Robie House is a U.S. National Historic Landmark now on the campus of the University of Chicago in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago, Illinois. Built between 1909 and 1910, the building was designed as a sing ...
located near the University of Chicago. A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.


Monuments and public art

Chicago is famous for its outdoor
public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...
with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the
Chicago Picasso The Chicago Picasso (often just ''The Picasso'') is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. ''The Picasso'' "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public ...
; Miro's Chicago; Calder's
Flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbea ...
; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54,
Man Enters the Cosmos ''Man Enters the Cosmos'' is a cast bronze sculpture by Henry Moore located on the Lake Michigan lakefront outside the Adler Planetarium in the Museum Campus area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture is a functional bowstring equatoria ...
and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's
Monument with Standing Beast ''Monument with Standing Beast'' is a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet in front of the Helmut Jahn designed James R. Thompson Center in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Its location is across the street from Chicago City Hall to the So ...
, Abakanowicz's Agora; and,
Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK t ...
's
Cloud Gate ''Cloud Gate'' is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Pa ...
which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration ( Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's
Crown Fountain ''Crown Fountain'' is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Archit ...
as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain. More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by
Lorado Taft Lorado Zadok Taft (April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois – October 30, 1936, in Chicago) was an American sculptor, writer and educator. His 1903 book, ''The History of American Sculpture,'' was the first survey of the subject and stood for deca ...
(
Fountain of Time ''Fountain of Time'', or simply ''Time'', is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring in length, situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. The sculpture is inspired ...
, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's Abraham Lincoln: The Man (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's
The Alarm The Alarm are a Welsh rock band that formed in Rhyl, Wales, in 1981. Initially formed as a punk band, the Toilets, in 1977, under lead vocalist Mike Peters, the band soon embraced arena rock and included marked influences from Welsh languag ...
, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along ''Solidarity Promenade'' to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center;
Harry Caray Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games ...
(by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field,
Jack Brickhouse John Beasley Brickhouse (January 24, 1916 – August 6, 1998) was an American sportscaster. Known primarily for his play-by-play coverage of Chicago Cubs games on WGN-TV from 1948 to 1981, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Ha ...
(by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and
Irv Kupcinet Irving Kupcinet (July 31, 1912 – November 10, 2003) was an American newspaper columnist for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', television talk-show host, and radio personality based in Chicago, Illinois. He was popularly known by the nickname "Kup". ...
at the Wabash Avenue Bridge. There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's '' Art Nouveau'' statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.


Climate

The city lies within the typical hot-summer
humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
: ''Dfa''), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent
heat waves A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern
Great Lakes region The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
. Still,
blizzard A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling ...
s do occur, such as the one in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs. According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934,Chicago's Official Records
National Weather Service. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to
severe thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are somet ...
s during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.


Time zone

As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the
Central Time Zone The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Central Standard Time (CST) is six hours behind Coordina ...
. The border with the
Eastern Time Zone The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small p ...
is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.


Demographics

During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census. From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians,
Montenegrins Montenegrins ( cnr, Црногорци, Crnogorci, or ; lit. "Black Mountain People") are a South Slavic ethnic group that share a common Montenegrin culture, history, and language, identified with the country of Montenegro. Genetics Accordi ...
and Czechs.Lizabeth Cohen, ''Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939''. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990; pp. 33–34. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930. In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called " Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. In 1990, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constituted the largest black majority region in the entire United States. Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
as the United States' second largest city. The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and after a decrease in 2010, it rose again for the 2020 census. According to U.S. census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the population. Chicago has the third-largest
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...
population in the United States. In 2018, the Chicago Department of Health, estimated 7.5% of the adult population, approximately 146,000 Chicagoans, were LGBTQ. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in
Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
, a majority of them in Chicago. Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked seventh globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million. According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were: * Ireland (137,799) * Poland (134,032) * Germany (120,328) * Italy (77,967) * China (66,978) * American (37,118) * UK (36,145) * recent African (32,727) * India (25,000) * Russia (19,771) * Arab (17,598) * European (15,753) * Sweden (15,151) * Japan (15,142) * Greece (15,129) * France (except Basque) (11,410) * Ukraine (11,104) * West Indian (except Hispanic groups) (10,349) Persons identifying themselves in "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.


Religion

According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
is the most prevalently practiced religion in Chicago (71%), with the city being the fourth-most religious metropolis in the United States after
Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
,
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
and Houston. Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
are the largest branches (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%),
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
(1%) and Hinduism (1%). Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several
dioceses In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...
. The
Fourth Presbyterian Church The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago is one of the largest congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), located in the Magnificent Mile neighborhood of Chicago, directly across Michigan Avenue from the John Hancock Center. History ...
is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
was the largest individual Christian denomination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically
Black church The black church (sometimes termed Black Christianity or African American Christianity) is the faith and body of Christian congregations and denominations in the United States that minister predominantly to African Americans, as well as their ...
es (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%). Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has at least 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population, making it the second largest religion. A 2020 study estimated the total Jewish population of the Chicago metropolitan area, both religious and irreligious, at 319,600. The first two
Parliament of the World's Religions There have been several meetings referred to as a Parliament of the World's Religions, the first being the World's Parliament of Religions of 1893, which was an attempt to create a global dialogue of faiths. The event was celebrated by another c ...
in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.


Economy

Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane,
Marshall Field Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer ...
, John Farwell,
Julius Rosenwald Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in ...
and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry. Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the
Chicago Board Options Exchange The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), located at 433 West Van Buren Street in Chicago, is the largest U.S. options exchange with an annual trading volume of around 1.27 billion at the end of 2014. CBOE offers options on over 2,200 compani ...
(CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners. The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 ''Fortune'' 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 ''Fortune'' Global 500 companies and 17 ''Financial Times'' 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the
Chicago Loop The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations. Three Fortune 500 companies left Chicago in 2022, leaving the city with 35, still second to New York City. Manufacturing, printing, publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International,
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web
startup companies A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
like
CareerBuilder CareerBuilder is an employment website founded in 1995 with offices in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. In 2008, it had the largest market share among online employment websites in the United States, where it was founded. CareerBu ...
,
Orbitz Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois. Background Origina ...
,
Basecamp Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...
,
Groupon Groupon is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon af ...
,
Feedburner FeedBurner is a web feed management service primarily for monetizing RSS feeds, primarily by inserting targeted advertisements into them. It was founded in 2004 and acquired by Google in 2007. Services Services provided to publishers include tr ...
,
Grubhub Grubhub Inc. is an American online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 2004, it is a subsidiary of the Dutch company Just Eat Takeaway since 2021. Grubhub has been crit ...
and NowSecure. Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and
US Foods US Foods (formerly known as U.S. Foodservice) is an American foodservice distributor. With approximately $24 billion in annual revenue, US Foods was the 10th largest private company in America until its IPO. It was founded in August 1989. Many ...
. Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward,
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, and
Marshall Field's Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...
. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens,
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, Ace Hardware, Claire's,
ULTA Beauty Ulta Beauty, Inc., formerly known as Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc. and before 2000 as Ulta3, is an American chain of beauty stores headquartered in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Ulta Beauty carries both high-end and low-end cosmetics, fragra ...
and
Crate & Barrel Euromarket Designs Inc., doing business as Crate & Barrel (stylized as Crate&Barrel), is an international furniture and home décor retail store headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. They employ 8200 employees across over 100 stores in the Uni ...
. Since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, four large companies left the Chicago area,
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
left to focus on its defense contracts, Caterpillar, and
Tyson Foods Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually ...
left to consolidate operations, and
Citadel LLC Citadel LLC (formerly known as Citadel Investment Group, LLC) is an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company. Founded in 1990 by Kenneth C. Griffin, it has more than $50 billion in assets under management . The company ...
cited crime-related factors. Citadel's CEO Ken Griffin, formerly the richest Illinois resident, had been engaged in a three-year feud with Illinois governor
J. B. Pritzker Jay Robert "J. B." Pritzker (born January 19, 1965) is an American billionaire businessman, philanthropist, and politician serving as the 43rd governor of Illinois since 2019. A member of the wealthy Pritzker family, which owns the worldwide ...
. In 2022, Kellogg's announced that the new spin-off of its snack business will move to the Chicago area, and Google announced a major real estate acquisition and expansion in the Loop. Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the
Schwinn Bicycle Company The Schwinn Bicycle Company is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets bicycles under the eponymous brand name. The company was originally founded by Ignaz Schwinn (1860–1948) in Chicago in 1895. It became the dominant manu ...
. Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is
McCormick Place McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America. It consists of four interconnected buildings and one indoor arena sited on and near the shore of Lake Michigan, about south of downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. McCorm ...
. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and
Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...
) in number of conventions hosted annually. Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation and reached $15 in 2021.


Culture and contemporary life

The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from
Rogers Park Rogers Park is the first of Chicago's 77 community areas. Located from the Loop, it is on the city's far north side on the shore of Lake Michigan. The neighborhood is commonly known for its cultural diversity, lush green public spaces, early ...
in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and ''La Villita'' along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of
Paseo Boricua ''Paseo Boricua'' (loosely translated as "Boricua (Puerto Rican) Promenade") is a section of Division Street in the Humboldt Park community of the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is located on Division Street, which is between Western and C ...
in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown;
Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are ...
, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in Uptown; and the
Desi DESI may refer to * Desorption electrospray ionization * Drug Efficacy Study Implementation Drug Efficacy Study Implementation (DESI) was a program begun by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1960s after the requirement (in the Kefauve ...
area, along
Devon Avenue Devon Avenue is a major east-west street in the Chicago metropolitan area. It begins at Chicago's Sheridan Road, which borders Lake Michigan, and it runs west until merging with Higgins Road near O'Hare International Airport. Devon continues on ...
in West Ridge. Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called " The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous
skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...
, abundant restaurants, shopping,
museums A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches. Lincoln Park contains the
Lincoln Park Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo, also known as Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens, is a zoo in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois. The zoo was founded in 1868, making it the fourth oldest zoo in North America. It is also one of a few free admission zoos in the Unit ...
and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...
nightlife and culture center. The
Chicago Pride Parade The Chicago Pride Parade, also colloquially (and formerly) called the Chicago Gay Pride Parade or PRIDE Chicago, is the annual pride parade held on the last Sunday of June in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is considered the ...
, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance. North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown. The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the
Midway Plaisance The Midway Plaisance, known locally as the Midway, is a public park on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joining Washington Park at its west end and Jackson Park ...
, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American
Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic The Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic (also known as The Bud Billiken Day Parade) is an annual parade held since 1929 in Chicago, Illinois. The Bud Billiken Day Parade is the largest African-American parade in the United States of America. Held annu ...
, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in
Hegewisch Hegewisch (pronounced "heg-wish" by the locals) is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's far south side. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Riverdale and South Deering to the west, the East Side to the ...
, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side. The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's
Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (formerly ''Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture'') is a museum in Chicago dedicated to interpreting the arts and culture of the Puerto Rican people and of the Puerto Ricans in Chicago. ...
and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the
National Museum of Mexican Art The National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA), formerly known as the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, is a museum featuring Mexican, Latino, and Chicano art and culture. It is located in Harrison Park in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois ...
and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's
Harpo Studios Harpo Productions (or Harpo Studios) is an American multimedia production company founded by Oprah Winfrey and based in West Hollywood, California. It is the sole subsidiary of her media and entertainment company Harpo, Inc. The name "Harpo" is ...
, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's. The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like '' The Blues Brothers'' and television programs like the '' Saturday Night Live'' skit " Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of
Inland Northern American English Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of U ...
. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
,
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
,
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, and
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.


Entertainment and the arts

Renowned Chicago theater companies include the
Goodman Theatre Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the la ...
in the Loop; the
Steppenwolf Theatre Company Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on ...
and
Victory Gardens Theater Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go ...
in Lincoln Park; and the
Chicago Shakespeare Theater Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Its more than six hundred annual performances performed 48 weeks of the year include its critically acclaimed Shakespeare s ...
at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the
Nederlander Theatre The Nederlander Theatre (formerly the National Theatre, the Billy Rose Theatre, and the Trafalgar Theatre) is a Broadway theater at 208 West 41st Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1921, it was des ...
,
CIBC Theatre CIBC Theatre is a performing arts theater located at 18 West Monroe Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago. It is operated by Broadway In Chicago, part of the Nederlander Organization. Opened in 1906 as the ''Majestic Theatre'', it currently ...
,
Cadillac Palace Theatre The Cadillac Palace Theatre (originally known as the New Palace Theatre) is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a Nederlander company. It is located at 151 West Randolph Street in the Chicago Loop area. History The theater opened in 1926 as the New ...
,
Auditorium Building The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1889, the building is located at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive. The building was des ...
of
Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The unive ...
, and
Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a Nederlander subsidiary. Located at Water Tower Place in Chicago, Illinois, it was formerly known as Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. It was reopened in 2004 and ...
.
Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...
productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the
Joseph Jefferson Award The Joseph Jefferson Award, more commonly known informally as the Jeff Award, is given for theatre arts produced in the Chicago area. Founded in 1968, the awards are named in tribute to actor Joseph Jefferson, a 19th-century American theater sta ...
s are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern
improvisational theater Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...
, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic). The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at
Symphony Center Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and ...
, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at
Symphony Center Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and ...
is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park.
Ravinia Festival Ravinia Festival is an outdoor music venue in Highland Park, Illinois. It hosts a series of outdoor concerts and performances every summer from June to September. The first orchestra to perform at Ravinia Festival was the New York Philharmonic unde ...
, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the
Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria ...
. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian. The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is a contemporary dance company based in Chicago. Hubbard Street performs in downtown Chicago at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance and at the Edlis Neeson Theater at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Hubb ...
and Chicago Dance Crash. Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include
Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...
,
Chicago soul Chicago soul is a style of soul music that arose during the 1960s in Chicago. Along with Detroit, the home of Motown, and Memphis, with its hard-edged, gritty performers (see Memphis soul), Chicago and the Chicago soul style helped spur the al ...
,
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock,
punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago
indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...
. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the
Pitchfork Music Festival The Pitchfork Music Festival is an annual summer music festival organized by ''Pitchfork Media'' and held in Union Park in Chicago, Illinois. Starting in 2011, the festival announced a branch staged in Paris at Grande halle de la Villette. The fe ...
. Lollapalooza originated in Chicago in 1991 and at first travelled to many cities, but as of 2005 its home has been Chicago. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances". Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown (artist), Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi (artist), Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art. Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the
Chicago Picasso The Chicago Picasso (often just ''The Picasso'') is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. ''The Picasso'' "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public ...
, ''We Will'' by Richard Hunt (sculptor), Richard Hunt, Miró's Chicago, ''
Flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbea ...
'' and ''Flying Dragon (Calder), Flying Dragon'' by Alexander Calder, '' Agora'' by Magdalena Abakanowicz, ''
Monument with Standing Beast ''Monument with Standing Beast'' is a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet in front of the Helmut Jahn designed James R. Thompson Center in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Its location is across the street from Chicago City Hall to the So ...
'' by Jean Dubuffet, '' Batcolumn'' by Claes Oldenburg, ''
Cloud Gate ''Cloud Gate'' is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Pa ...
'' by
Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK t ...
, ''
Crown Fountain ''Crown Fountain'' is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Archit ...
'' by Jaume Plensa, and the ''Four Seasons (Chagall), Four Seasons'' mosaic by Marc Chagall. Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year.


Tourism

, Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the
Magnificent Mile The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is an upscale section of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, running from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side. The district is located within downtown, and one block ...
and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention (meeting), convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at
McCormick Place McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America. It consists of four interconnected buildings and one indoor arena sited on and near the shore of Lake Michigan, about south of downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. McCorm ...
, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective ''
Cloud Gate ''Cloud Gate'' is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Pa ...
'' public sculpture by artist
Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK t ...
is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the
Crown Fountain ''Crown Fountain'' is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Archit ...
. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater (Chicago, Illinois), Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.
Navy Pier Navy Pier is a pier on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Navy Pier encompasses over of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants, family ...
, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel. On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the
Museum Campus Museum Campus is a park in Chicago that sits alongside Lake Michigan in Grant Park and encompasses five of the city's most notable attractions: the Adler Planetarium, America's first planetarium; the Shedd Aquarium; the Field Museum of Natura ...
, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry. With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation. The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down. In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of ''Condé Nast Traveler'', and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.


Cuisine

Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned Chicago-style pizza, deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Uno Chicago Grill, Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's. The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, Mustard (condiment)#Yellow mustard, yellow mustard, pickled Chili pepper, sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed hot dog bun, bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera. A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers. Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Cuisine of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The Mother-in-law (sandwich), mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek cuisine, Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival. One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin Guide, Michelin stars, Alinea (restaurant), Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, ''Robb Report'' named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".


Literature

Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the ''Encyclopedia of Chicago'', Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to "''capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people''". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s. What would become the influential ''Poetry (magazine), Poetry'' magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
''. The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery.Goodyear, Dana
"The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?"
article, ''The New Yorker'', February 19 and 26 double issue, 2007
T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by ''Poetry''. Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poets, Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the poetry slam.


Sports

''Sporting News'' named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2. The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908 Chicago Cubs season, 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945 Chicago Cubs season, 1945, both records, until they beat the 2016 Cleveland Indians season, Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series. The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants. The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine List of NFL champions, NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the History of the Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation. The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 NBA season, 2010–11 season. The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015 Stanley Cup Finals, 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center. Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview, Illinois, Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful 1994 FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field. The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began. The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors. Five area colleges play in Division I (NCAA), Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League). Chicago has also entered into esports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the Call of Duty League, CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.


Parks and greenspace

When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto ''Urbs in Horto'', a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand List of beaches in Chicago, Illinois, beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. There is a historic Chicago boulevard system, boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks in Chicago, parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of neighborhoods of Chicago, Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six town square, squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The ''Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District'' was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park (Chicago), DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop. The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois, Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.


Law and government


Government

The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislature, legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The Chicago City Council, City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each wards of the United States, ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of local ordinance, ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget. The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States District Attorney, attorney.


Politics

During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Cook County Democratic Party, Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "Red states and blue states, solid blue" in United States presidential election, presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican Party (United States), Republican mayor since 1927, when William Hale Thompson, William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding. Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 Illinois's congressional districts, districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997. Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of
Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as may ...
(in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary election, primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed. The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood, Chicago, Kenwood on the city's south side.


Crime

Chicago's crime rate in 2020 was 3,926 per 100,000 people. Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, New Jersey, Newark, and
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, although the latter has fallen substantially in recent years. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in Gun violence in the United States, gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns. According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000. The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012. In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans,
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012. As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020.Jeremy Gorner & Jonathon Berlin
Carjackings more than double in Chicago during 2020, police say, perhaps as criminals blended in with masked public
''Chicago Tribune'' (January 18, 2021).
According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using Face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.Gregory Pratt & John Byrne
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says spike in carjackings 'top of mind,' adding 40 more police officers to carjacking unit and gathering regional mayors
''Chicago Tribune'' (January 27, 2021).


Employee pensions

In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Constitution of Illinois, Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.


Education


Schools and libraries

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep High School, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools). Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School (Chicago), Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include List of Jesuit secondary schools in the United States#Illinois, Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School (Chicago), Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School (Chicago, Illinois), Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School (Chicago), Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School (Illinois), Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School (Chicago, Illinois), Marist High School, St. Patrick High School (Chicago), St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School (Chicago, Illinois), Resurrection High School. The Chicago Public Library system operates 3 regional libraries and 77 neighbourhood branches, including the central library.


Colleges and universities

Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by ''U.S. News & World Report''. Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois;
Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The unive ...
; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College. William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College. Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School (Chicago), John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.


Media


Television

The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four List of United States over-the-air television networks, U.S. television networks, CBS, American Broadcasting Company, ABC, NBC and Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM-TV, WBBM 2, WLS-TV, WLS 7, WMAQ-TV, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former The CW, CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which was owned from its inception by Tribune Broadcasting (now owned by the Nexstar Media Group since 2019), is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on Cable television, cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. WGN America eventually became NewsNation in 2021. Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', ''Steve Harvey (talk show), Steve Harvey Show'', ''The Rosie Show'', ''The Jerry Springer Show'', ''The Phil Donahue Show'', ''The Jenny Jones Show'', and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as ''Sneak Previews'', ''The Frugal Gourmet'', ''Lamb Chop's Play-Along'' and ''The McLaughlin Group''. , ''Windy City Live'' is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, ''Judge Mathis'' also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, ''Newsy'' began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.


Newspapers

Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' and the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as ''Chicago (magazine), Chicago'', the Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News), ''Dziennik Związkowy'' (''Polish Daily News''), ''Draugas'' (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the ''Chicago Reader'', the ''SouthtownStar'', the ''Chicago Defender'', the ''Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), Daily Herald'', ''Newcity'', ''StreetWise'' and the ''Windy City Times''. The entertainment and cultural magazine ''Time Out Chicago'' and Grab (magazine), ''GRAB'' magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine ''Chicago Innerview''. In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, ''The Onion'', as well as its sister pop-culture publication, ''The A.V. Club''.


Movies and filming

Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed or set in the city such as ''The Untouchables (film), The Untouchables'', '' The Blues Brothers'', ''The Matrix'', ''Brewster's Millions'', ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'', ''Sixteen Candles'', ''Home Alone'', ''The Fugitive (1993 film), The Fugitive'', ''I, Robot (film), I, Robot'', ''Mean Girls'', ''Wanted (2008 film), Wanted'', ''Batman Begins'', ''The Dark Knight (film), The Dark Knight'', ''Dhoom 3'', ''Transformers: Dark of the Moon'', ''Transformers: Age of Extinction'', ''Transformers: The Last Knight'', ''Divergent (film), Divergent'', ''Man of Steel (film), Man of Steel'', ''Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'', ''Sinister 2'', ''Suicide Squad (film), Suicide Squad'', ''Justice League (film), Justice League'', ''Rampage (2018 film), Rampage'' and ''The Batman (film), The Batman''. In The Dark Knight Trilogy and the DC Extended Universe, Chicago was used as the inspiration and filming site for Gotham City and Metropolis (comics), Metropolis respectively. Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies ''Perfect Strangers (TV series), Perfect Strangers'' and its spinoff ''Family Matters'', ''Married... with Children'', ''Punky Brewster'', ''Kenan & Kel'', ''Still Standing (American TV series), Still Standing'', ''The League'', ''The Bob Newhart Show'', and ''Shake It Up (U.S. TV series), Shake It Up''. The city served as the venue for the medical dramas ''ER (TV series), ER'' and ''Chicago Hope'', as well as the fantasy drama series ''Early Edition'' and the 2005–2009 drama ''Prison Break''. Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: ''Cook County Jail'' and the Chicago version of ''Cash Cab (American game show), Cash Cab''. Other notable shows include CBS's ''The Good Wife (TV series), The Good Wife'' and ''Mike and Molly''. Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's ''Shameless (U.S. TV series), Shameless'', and NBC's ''Chicago Fire (TV series), Chicago Fire'', ''Chicago P.D. (TV series), Chicago P.D.'' and ''Chicago Med (TV series), Chicago Med''. All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.


Radio

Chicago has five List of 50 kW AM radio stations in the United States, 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM (AM), WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN (AM), WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS (AM), WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including ''Beyond the Beltway'' with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings. Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as Public Radio International, PRI's ''This American Life'' and National Public Radio, NPR's ''Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!''.


Music

In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled ''Illinois (Sufjan Stevens album), Illinois''; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.


Industrial genre

The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as Industrial music, industrial. Many themes are Transgressive art, transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! Records, Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry (band), Ministry, with the release of the Cold Life, cold life single, which entered the Dance/Electronic Singles Sales, US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."


Video games

Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including ''Watch Dogs (video game), Watch Dogs'' and ''Midtown Madness'', a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the ''Mortal Kombat'' series.


Infrastructure


Transportation

Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore. The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.


Expressways

Seven mainline and four auxiliary Interstate Highway System, interstate highways (Interstate 55 in Illinois, 55, Interstate 57, 57, Interstate 65 in Indiana, 65 (only in Indiana), Interstate 80 in Illinois, 80 (also in Interstate 80 in Indiana, Indiana), Interstate 88 (west), 88, Interstate 90 in Illinois, 90 (also in Indiana Toll Road, Indiana), Interstate 94 in Illinois, 94 (also in Interstate 94 in Indiana, Indiana), Interstate 190 (Illinois), 190, Interstate 290 (Illinois), 290, Interstate 294, 294, and Interstate 355, 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson II, Adlai Stevenson. The Kennedy Expressway, Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressway, Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.


Transit systems

The Regional Transportation Authority (Illinois), Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace. * The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the City of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the Chicago "L", 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Chicago Midway International Airport, Midway and O'Hare International Airport, O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Red, Blue Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Blue, Green Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Green, Orange Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Orange, Brown Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Brown, Purple Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Purple, Pink Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Pink, and Yellow Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24‑hour service which makes Chicago one of a handful of cities around the world (and one of two in the United States, the other being New York City) to offer rail service 24 hours a day, every day of the year, within the city's limits. * Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and throughout the Chicago suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line (NICTD), South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend, Indiana, South Bend and Chicago. * Pace (transit), Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit. Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).


Passenger rail

Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station (Chicago), Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, New Orleans, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Seattle,
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
, Quincy, Illinois, Quincy, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, Carbondale, Illinois, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Michigan, Port Huron, Pontiac, Michigan, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Future services will terminate at Rockford, Illinois, Rockford and Moline, Illinois, Moline. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.


Bicycle and scooter sharing systems

In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Chicago, Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Chicago, Beverly, Belmont Cragin, Chicago, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park, Chicago, Edison Park. In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird (company), Bird, Jump (transportation company), Jump, Lime (transportation company), Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 Electric motorcycles and scooters, electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.


Freight rail

Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.


Airports

Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Chicago Midway International Airport, Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards Proposed Chicago south suburban airport, building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.


Port authority

The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. * Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over of storage. * Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3,000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing. * Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet. * The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign trade zones of the United States, Foreign trade zone No. 22, which extends from Chicago's city limits.


Utilities

Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County, Illinois, Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of
Exelon Exelon Corporation is an American Fortune 100 energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and incorporated in Pennsylvania. It generates revenues of approximately $33.5 billion and employs approximately 33,400 people. Exelon is the largest ...
) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy. Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago. Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Lake Calumet, Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.


Health systems

The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by ''U.S. News & World Report'' for 2014–16, the University of Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation. Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by ''U.S. News & World Report'' for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by ''U.S. News & World Report''; the new List of Northwestern University buildings#Prentice Women's Hospital, Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana–Champaign). In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago, Illinois, North Chicago and Maywood, Illinois, Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic medicine in the United States, Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove, Illinois, Downers Grove. The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.


Sister cities

Chicago has 28 Twin towns and sister cities, sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties. To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program. Sister cities * Warsaw (Poland) ''1960'' * Milan (Italy) ''1973'' * Osaka (Japan) ''1973'' * Casablanca (Morocco) ''1982'' * Shanghai (China) ''1985'' * Shenyang (China) ''1985'' * Gothenburg (Sweden) ''1987'' * Accra (Ghana) ''1989'' * Prague (Czech Republic) ''1990'' * Kyiv (Ukraine) ''1991'' * Mexico City (Mexico) ''1991'' * Toronto (Canada) ''1991'' * Birmingham (United Kingdom) ''1993'' * Vilnius (Lithuania) ''1993'' * Hamburg (Germany) ''1994'' * Petah Tikva (Israel) ''1994'' * Paris (France) ''1996'' (friendship and cooperation agreement only) * Athens (Greece) ''1997''Chicago is not listed as a sister city on the official list of the Greek government. * Durban (South Africa) ''1997'' * Galway (Ireland) ''1997'' * Moscow (Russia) ''1997'' (Suspended) * Lucerne (Switzerland) ''1998'' * Delhi (India) ''2001'' * Amman (Jordan) ''2004'' * Belgrade (Serbia) ''2005'' * São Paulo (Brazil) ''2007'' * Lahore (Pakistan) ''2007'' * Busan (South Korea) ''2007'' * Bogotá (Colombia) ''2009'' * City of Sydney (Australia) ''February 21, 2019'' (The City of Sydney considers the City of Chicago a "City of Sydney#Friendship cities, friendship city", while the City of Chicago considers the City of Sydney a "sister city.")


See also

* Chicago area water quality * Chicago Wilderness * Gentrification of Chicago * List of cities with the most skyscrapers * List of people from Chicago * List of fiction set in Chicago * National Register of Historic Places listings in Central Chicago * National Register of Historic Places listings in North Side Chicago * National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side Chicago


Explanatory notes


Citations


General and cited references

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External links

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Chicago History

Maps of Chicago from the American Geographical Society Library
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