Roads and expressways in Chicago summarizes the main thoroughfares and the numbering system used in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and its surrounding suburbs.

Street layout

Chicago's

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

s were laid out in a grid that grew from the city's original townsite plan platted by James Thompson. 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 17 ...

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 16 in the other direction. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city. Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the

Plan of Chicago The Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909 ''Plan of Chicago'' coauthored by Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett and published in 1909. It recommended an integrated series of projects including new and widened streets, parks, new railr ...

, 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, a plank road opened ...

was ever constructed. In the 1950s and 1960s, a network of superhighways was built radiating from the city center. As the city grew and annexed adjacent towns, problems arose with duplicate street names and a confusing numbering system based on the Chicago River. On June 22, 1908, the city council adopted a system proposed by Edward P. Brennan; amended June 21, 1909. The changes were effective September 1, 1909 for most of the city.

Address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using border, political boundaries and street names as references, ...

es in Chicago and some suburbs are numbered outward from baselines at State Street, which runs north and south, and Madison Street, which runs east and west. A book was published in 1909 by The Chicago Directory Company indexing the old and new street numbers for most of Chicago. This volume is available online in PDF format indexed by initial letter, Plan of Re-Numbering, City of Chicago, August 1909. The opening text of the book says: ''EXPLANATORY'' The downtown area did not conform to this system until April 1, 1911, per an amendment to the law on June 20, 1910. Downtown was defined as Lake Michigan on the east, Roosevelt Road (Twelfth Street) on the south, and the Chicago River on the north and west. The addition to cover downtown was published, and is also on line as a pdf indexed by downtown street name. This additional paragraph explained the downtown changes: Chicago house numbers are generally assigned at the rate of 800 to a mile. The only exceptions are from Madison to 31st Street, just south of downtown. Roosevelt Road (previously Twelfth St) is one mile south of Madison with 1200 addresses to the mile, Cermak Road (previously 22nd Street) is two miles south of Madison with 1000 addresses to the mile, and 31st Street (3100 S) is three miles south of Madison with 900 addresses to the mile. South of 31st Street, the pattern of 800 to the mile resumes, with 39th Street the next major street, 47th after that, and so on. Individual house numbers are normally assigned at the rate of one per 20 feet of frontage. Thus the last two digits of house numbers generally go only as high as 67 before the next block number is reached. Higher house numbers are found on diagonal streets and have sometimes been assigned by request. The blocks are normally counted out by "hundreds," so that Chicagoans routinely give directions by saying things such as "about twelve hundred north on Western" or "around twenty-four hundred west on Division" (which both describe the intersection of Western Avenue (2400 W) and Division Street (1200 N)). South of Madison Street most of the east–west streets are simply numbered. The street numbering is aligned with the

house numbering House numbering is the system of giving a unique number to each building in a street or area, with the intention of making it easier to locate a particular building. The house number is often part of a Address (geography), postal address. The ter ...

, so that 95th Street is exactly 9500 South. "Half-block" east–west thoroughfares in this area are numbered and called places; 95th Place would lie just south of and parallel to 95th Street, and just north of 96th Street. Every four blocks (half-mile) is a major secondary street. For example, Division Street (1200 N) is less important than either Chicago Avenue (800 N) or North Avenue (1600 N), but is still a major thoroughfare. However, this is not always the case; for example, on the city's Far North Side, Peterson Avenue (6000 N) is a more heavily trafficked street than Bryn Mawr Avenue (5600 N), which sits exactly at the 7-mile marker. U.S. Route 14 is routed along Peterson between Clark Street at 1600 W and Cicero Avenue at 4800 W, whereas Bryn Mawr is discontinuous, split into two segments in this part of the city by Rosehill Cemetery between Damen and Western Avenues. Even-numbered addresses are found on the north and west sides of a street, and odd numbers are found on the south and east sides, irrespective of the streets' position relative to the corner of State and Madison. Diagonals, even if they were to run exactly 45 degrees off of the cardinal directions, are numbered as if they were north–south or east–west streets. Examples are North Lincoln Avenue and Ogden Avenue, which bends at Madison and changes from North Ogden to West Ogden. The northernmost street in Chicago is Juneway Terrace (7800 N), just north of Howard Street. The southern boundary is 138th Street. The eastern boundary of Chicago is Avenue A/State Line Road (4100 E) along and south of 106th Street, and the furthest west the city extends is in the portion of

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, Loop business district. The airport is ope ...

that lies in DuPage County, just east of Elmhurst/York Road.

Street names

While all north–south streets within city limits are named, rather than numbered, smaller streets in some areas are named in groups all starting with the same letter; thus, when traveling westward on a Chicago street, starting just past Pulaski Road (4000 W), one will cross a mile-long stretch of streets which have names starting with the letter K (From east to west: Keystone (North Side)/Komensky (South Side), Karlov, Kedvale, Keeler, Kildare, Kolin, Kostner, Kenneth, Kilbourn, Kolmar, Kenton, Knox, Kilpatrick, Keating), giving rise to the expression "K-town". These streets are found approximately in the 11th mile west of the Indiana state line, and so begin with the 11th letter of the alphabet. A mile later, just past Cicero (4800 W), the starting letter changes to L, and mile by mile the letters progress up to P. Additionally, for most of the first mile west of the Illinois/Indiana state line, streets are lettered from Avenue A (S State Line Road) at the state line (4100 E) to Avenue O (3430 E), forming the A group. The areas that might otherwise be the B through J groups are the older parts of the city where street names were already well established before this system was developed (although some small groups of streets seem to have been given names intended to conform to the system), and the Q group (8800 to 9600 W) would fall west of the city, as the only land in Chicago west of 8800 West is

, undeveloped forest preserve, and a small strip of land connecting O'Hare to the rest of the city and containing only Foster Avenue.

Suburbs

Some suburbs number their east–west streets in a continuation of the Chicago pattern, and even more number their houses according to the Chicago grid. A few suburbs also number their north–south avenues according to the Chicago grid, although such numbering vanished from Chicago itself long ago (the alphabetical naming scheme was devised to help eliminate it). For example, the 54th/Cermak terminus of the Pink Line is located near the intersection of 54th Avenue and

Cermak Road Cermak Road, also known as 22nd Street, is a 19-mile, major east–west street on Chicago's near south and west sides and the city's western suburbs. In Chicago's street numbering system, Cermak is 2200 south, or twenty-two blocks south of the ...

(22nd Street) in

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

. This is 54 blocks west of State Street in Chicago. A minor street blocks west of State Street would be called 54th Court (in reality, that is Lotus Avenue in Chicago). This pattern continues as far west as Plainfield, which has a 252nd Avenue, as far north as Skokie at Central Street (10100 North), and as far south as the southern edge of Will County. Suburbs that follow the Chicago numbering system include Berwyn, Bridgeview, Brookfield,

Burbank Burbank may refer to: Places Australia * Burbank, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane United States * Burbank, California, a city in Los Angeles County * Burbank, Santa Clara County, California, a census-designated place * Burbank, Illinois, ...

, Channahon, Chicago Heights,

, Crystal Lake, Elwood, Evergreen Park, Franklin Park,

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

, Lincolnwood, Matteson, Monee, Morris, Morton Grove, Niles, North Chicago, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Oswego, River Grove, Rosemont, Skokie, Westchester, unincorporated parts of Des Plaines, Glenview, and other parts 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 percent of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. ...

, Will, DuPage, Kendall, and Grundy Counties. Other suburbs, including Evanston, Park Ridge, Oak Park, Glenview and Wilmette use their own numbering systems. The six "collar" counties (DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will) use State and Madison as a base line. For example, 32W000 in DuPage County is 32 miles west of State Street, 38000 in Lake County would be 38 miles north of Madison Street, and is normally used without the direction letter. In these counties, unlike Chicago, numbering is 1,000 numbers to the mile, so in DuPage County miles west is 32W500. Some Chicago suburbs in adjoining

Northwest Indiana Northwest Indiana, nicknamed "The Region" after the Calumet Region, is an unofficial region of Northern Indiana, northern Indiana, United States that is located at the northwestern corner of the state. Though there is no official definition of th ...

also use the Chicago numbering system. These include East Chicago, Whiting, and Hammond. There are even examples further south in Lake County in Dyer and Schererville such as 205th Place through 215th Street (these examples coordinate with the Chicago grid, not the Gary street system). Other municipalities, such as

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range ...

, and

Griffith Griffith may refer to: People * Griffith (name) * Griffith (surname) * Griffith (given name) Places Antarctica * Mount Griffith, Ross Dependency * Griffith Peak (Antarctica), Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Glacier, Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Ridge, ...

are based on the

Gary, Indiana Gary ( ) is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 69,093 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it Indiana's List of municipalities in Indiana, eleventh-most populous city. The city has been historical ...

numbering system, beginning with 5th Avenue in Gary and increasing numerically as one travels southward. Examples in Scheider in the far south of

Lake County, Indiana Lake County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. In 2020, its population was 498,700, making it Indiana's List of counties in Indiana, second-most populous county. The county seat is Crown Point, Indiana, C ...

go as far down as 244th Avenue. The aforementioned pattern also occurs in

Waukegan, Illinois Waukegan ( ) is a city in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. Located north of Chicago, Waukegan is a satellite city within the greater Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, its population was 89,321, makin ...

, with Washington Street being the baseline between north and south. Nearby municipalities such as Gurnee, Park City, and North Chicago continue with the Waukegan numbering pattern, while rural areas in

Lake County, Illinois Lake County is a County (United States), county located in the northeastern corner of the U.S. state of Illinois, along the shores of Lake Michigan. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it has a population of 714,342, making it th ...

follow the Chicago grid.

Grid

Mile roads

(No part of Golf Road, Dempster Street, Oakton Street, Wolf Road, LaGrange Road or 143rd Street to 311th Street actually lies within the boundaries of Chicago. These streets are included for reference, since they are a continuation of the Chicago mile street pattern into the suburbs.)

Downtown

The density of main streets in downtown Chicago is greater than in the rest of the city, with some at half-block spacing (just 50 address numbers or one-sixteenth mile from the next parallel street), or block spacing between main streets, unlike the rest of the city where the main streets are spaced at half-mile and mile intervals: * North/south: ** Canal Street (500 W) **

Wacker Drive Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop.Hayner, Don and Tom McNamee, ''Streetwise Chicago'', "Wacke ...

(400 W) ** Franklin Street (300 W) ** Wells Street (200 W) **

LaSalle Street LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's f ...

(140 W) ** Clark Street (100 W) ** Dearborn Street (36 W) ** State Street (0 E/W) ** Wabash Avenue (44 E) ** Michigan Avenue (100 E) ** Columbus Drive/Fairbanks Court (300 E) ** McClurg Court (400 E) * East/west: ** Oak Street (1000 N) ** Walton Street (932 N) ** Delaware Place (900 N) ** Chestnut Street (860 N) ** Pearson Street (830 N) **

Chicago Avenue Chicago Avenue is a major east–west street in Chicago, Illinois, that runs at 800 north from 385 east to 5968 west in the Chicago street address system from which point it enters the suburbs and goes into several different suburban addr ...

(800 N) ** Superior Street (732 N) ** Huron Street (700 N) ** Erie Street (658 N) ** Ontario Street (628 N) ** Ohio Street (600 N) ** Grand Avenue (530 N) ** Illinois Street (500 N) **

Hubbard Street Hubbard Street is a street in Chicago, Illinois named for early settler Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard. Hubbard Street has three distinct sections. The first, east of the Chicago River, runs from Kingsbury Street to Michigan Avenue. The second, lo ...

(430 N) ** Kinzie Street (400 N) **

(300 N) ** Lake Street (200 N) **

Randolph Street Randolph Street is a street in Chicago running east–west through the Loop, carrying westbound traffic west from Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River on the Randolph Street Bridge, interchanging with the Kennedy Expressway ( I-90/ I-94) ...

(150 N) ** Washington Street (100 N) ** Madison Street (0 N/S) ** Monroe Street (100 S) ** Adams Street (200 S) **

Jackson Boulevard Jackson Boulevard is a street in Chicago, in whose grid system it is 300 South. Named for President Andrew Jackson, it is adjacent to Van Buren Street named for Jackson's associate Martin Van Buren. Jackson Boulevard is also a street that para ...

(300 S) **

Van Buren Street Van Buren Street is a street in Chicago, in whose grid system it is 400 South. Named for President Martin Van Buren, it is adjacent to Jackson Boulevard named for Van Buren's associate Andrew Jackson. The Van Buren Street Bridge carries it ac ...

(400 S) ** Ida B. Wells Drive/Congress Parkway (500 S) ** Harrison Street (600 S) ** Balbo Drive (700 S) ** Polk Street (800 S)

Secondary streets

* East/west: ** 10000 N – (Old Orchard Road) ** 9200 N – (Church Street) ** 8400 N – (Main Street) ** 7600 N – Howard Street ** 6800 N – Pratt Avenue ** 6000 N – US 14

Peterson Avenue ** 5200 N –

Foster Avenue Foster Avenue (5200 N) is a major east-west street on the North Side of Chicago as well as the northwestern suburbs. Foster Avenue serves as the boundary line for the Chicago community areas of Edgewater to the north and Uptown to the sout ...

** 4600 N – Wilson Avenue (not a half-mile) ** 4400 N – Montrose Avenue ** 3600 N –

Addison Street Addison Street is a major east–west street on the north side of Chicago and its western suburbs. Wrigley Field is located at 1060 West Addison Street, which is the home of the Chicago Cubs. Chicago communities From east to west: *Lake View ( ...

** 2800 N – Diversey Parkway ** 2000 N – Armitage Avenue ** 1200 N – Division Street ** 400 N – Kinzie Street ** 1000 S – Taylor Street (not a half-mile) ** 1600 S – 16th Street ** 2600 S – 26th Street ** 3500 S – 35th Street ** 4300 S – 43rd Street ** 5100 S – 51st Street (East Hyde Park Boulevard) ** 5900 S – 59th Street ** 6700 S – Marquette Road (67th Street) ** 7500 S – 75th Street ** 8300 S – 83rd Street (German Church Road in Willow Springs, Montgomery Road in Aurora) ** 9100 S – 91st Street ** 9900 S – 99th Street ** 10400 S - 104th Street ** 10700 S – 107th Street ** 11500 S – 115th Street (Claar Boulevard in Bolingbrook) ** 12300 S – 123rd Street (McCarthy Road in Palos Park) ** 13000 S – 130th Street (not a half-mile) ** 13800 S - 138th Street (boundary of Chicago) * North/south: ** 9400 W – River Road (not a half-mile) ** 8400 W – 1st Avenue (Cumberland Avenue) ** 7600 W – Oriole Avenue ** 6800 W – Oak Park Avenue ** 6000 W – Austin Avenue ** 5200 W – Laramie Avenue ** 4400 W – Kostner Avenue ** 3600 W – Central Park Avenue ** 3400 W – Kimball Avenue (Homan Avenue) not a half-mile ** 2800 W – California Avenue ** 2000 W – Damen Avenue ** 1200 W – Racine Avenue ** 400 E – Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (King Drive) ** 1200 E – Woodlawn Avenue ** 2000 E – Jeffery Boulevard ** 2628 E – Torrence Avenue (not a half-mile) ** 2800 E – Burnham Avenue ** 3000 E – Commercial Avenue (not a half-mile) ** 3600 E – Avenue L The half-mile numbered streets on the South Side are all secondary streets: 35th, 43rd, 51st, 59th, etc.; all are numbered aside from Marquette Road, running at 6700 S, west from King Drive (400 E) to the city's western limit at Cicero Avenue (4800 W), near

Midway International Airport Chicago Midway International Airport is a major commercial airport on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, located approximately 12 miles (19 km) from the city's Loop business district, and divided between the city's Clearing and ...

. East of King to near

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

at 2400 E, it is called 67th Street, and Marquette is aligned one block to the north on what would be 66th Street. (No part of Old Orchard Road, Church Street, or Main Street actually lies within the boundaries of Chicago. These streets are included for reference, since they are a continuation of the Chicago mile street pattern into the suburbs.) A similar numbering system is also used in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

Diagonal roads

The following streets run diagonally through Chicago's grid system on all or part of their courses. These streets tend to form major 5 or 6-way intersections. In many cases they were Indian trails, or were among the earliest streets established in the city. Diagonals are numbered as north–south or east–west streets. Examples are North Lincoln Avenue and Ogden Avenue, which bends at Madison and changes from North Ogden to West Ogden. * N. Rogers Avenue * N. Ridge Avenue/Boulevard * N. Broadway * N. Clark Street * N. Rush Street * N. Lincoln Avenue * N.

Sheridan Road Sheridan Road is a major north-south street that leads from Diversey Parkway (Chicago), Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine, Wisconsin, Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the ...

* N. Caldwell Avenue * N. Lehigh Avenue * N. Clybourn Avenue * N. Kingsbury Street * N.

Elston Avenue Elston Avenue is a street in the city of Chicago, serving as an alternate route along the east side of the Kennedy Expressway (Interstates 90 and 94). It begins at Milwaukee Avenue, just north of Chicago Avenue. It travels northwest for alm ...

* N. Avondale Avenue * N. Milwaukee Avenue * N. Northwest Highway * W. Forest Preserve Drive * W. Higgins Avenue * W. Grand Avenue * W. Lake Street * W. Fifth Avenue * N. and W.

* S. Blue Island Avenue * S. Canalport Avenue * S. Archer Avenue * N. Stagecoach Trail * S. Governors Highway * W. Columbus Avenue * S. Vincennes Avenue * S. Beverly Avenue * S. Anthony Avenue * S. South Chicago Avenue * S. Exchange Avenue * S. Ewing Avenue * S. Brainard Avenue * S. South Shore Drive * S. Indianapolis Avenue * W. Plainfield Road * W. Hobson Road * E. Boughton Road * E. Oldfield Road * E. Maple Avenue * W. Batavia Road * W. Wolf's Crossing Road * W. Main Street * W. New Avenue * W. High Lake Road * W. Crescent Boulevard * E. Glenwood-Dyer Road

Expressways

The city of Chicago proper contains seven major

Interstate highways The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National H ...

U.S. Routes

County roads

Cook County has a modest amount of

county roads A county highway (also county road or county route; usually abbreviated CH or CR) is a road in the United States and in the Canadian province of Ontario that is designated and/or maintained by the County (United States), county highway departm ...

after plans were made in 2009 to designate many roads on county ownership as a public service. Only the designated streets in the townships of Lemont, Palos, Orland, Bremen, Lyons (south of the rivers) and Wheeling have the blue pentagon signs that are used to demarcate county roads.

Gallery

File:Chicago Interstates map.png, Interstates in Chicago as of June 2007 File:ChicagoSkyway1104.jpg, Sunset view of the

Chicago Skyway Interstate 90 (I-90) in the US state of Illinois runs roughly northwest-to-southeast through the northern part of the state. From the Wisconsin state line at South Beloit, Illinois, South Beloit, it heads south to Rockford, Illinois, Ro ...

tollbooths at the entrance to the

southbound city limits File:LakeShoreDrive.jpg, South Lake Shore Drive, looking north towards downtown. File:Traffic on US Highway 41 in Foggy Chicago.jpg, Traffic going southbound on the Kennedy Expressway on a foggy day. File:0-0-Chicago.jpg, The intersection of Madison St and State St is regarded as the "zero-zero point" of Chicago.

References

External links

Architecture and Building History resources, Chicago History Museum
{{Streets in Chicago Chicago-related lists Transportation in Chicago