Illinois
Contents |
Flag Seal
Nickname(s): Land of Lincoln; The Prairie State
Motto(s): State sovereignty, national union
Official language(s) English
Spoken language(s) English (80.8%)
Spanish (10.9%)
Polish (1.6%)
Other (6.7%)
Demonym Illinoisan
Capital Springfield
Largest city Chicago
Largest metro area Chicago metropolitan area
Area Ranked 25th in the US
- Total 57,918 sq mi
(140,998 km2)
- Width 210 miles (340 km)
- Length 395 miles (629 km)
- % water 4.0/ Negligible
- Latitude 36° 58′ N to 42° 30′ N
- Longitude 87° 30′ W to 91° 31′ W
Population Ranked 5th in the US
- Total 12,910,409 (2009 est.)
- Density 223.4/sq mi (86.27/km2)
Ranked 12th in the US
- Median income $54,124 (17)
Elevation
- Highest point Charles Mound
1,235 ft (377 m)
- Mean 600 ft (182 m)
- Lowest point Mississippi River
279 ft (85 m)
Before statehood Illinois Territory
Admission to Union December 3, 1818 (21st)
Governor Pat Quinn (D)
Lieutenant Governor vacant
Legislature General Assembly
- Upper house Senate
- Lower house House of Representatives
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D)
Roland Burris (D)
U.S. House delegation 12 Democrats, 7 Republicans (list)
Time zone Central: UTC-6/-5
Abbreviations IL, Ill., US-IL
Website http://www.illinois.gov
The Flag of Illinois.
The Seal of Illinois.
Animate insignia
Amphibian Eastern Tiger Salamander
Bird(s) Northern Cardinal
Butterfly Monarch Butterfly
Fish Bluegill
Flower(s) Violet
Grass Big Bluestem
Mammal(s) White-tailed deer
Reptile Painted Turtle
Tree White oak
Inanimate insignia
Dance Square dance
Food Gold Rush Apple • Popcorn
Fossil Tully Monster
Mineral Fluorite
Poem The Death Poem
Slogan(s) "Land of Lincoln"
Soil Drummer silty clay loam
Song(s) "Illinois"
Route marker(s)
State Quarter
Released in 2003
Lists of United States state insignia
Illinois (
i /ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ/ il-i-noy), is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. It is the most populous state in the Midwest region, however with 65% of its residents living in the Chicago metropolitan area, most of the state has either a rural or a small town character. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and western Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is an important transportation hub; the Port of Chicago connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. As the "most average state", Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics, though the latter has not really been true since the early 1970s.
In the 1810s settlers began arriving from Kentucky; Illinois achieved statehood in 1818.Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Its manufacturing made the state a major arsenal in both world wars. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to Chicago, established a large community that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while living in Illinois — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. However, only President Ronald Reagan grew up in the state; he was born in Tampico, and raised in Dixon. Lincoln is the only president buried in Illinois; he is interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with official state slogan, Land of Lincoln, which is displayed on its license plates.
Name
"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French missionary/explorers' name for the Illinois people, a name that was spelled in many different ways in the early records.
The name "Illinois" has traditionally been said to mean "man" or "men" in the Miami-Illinois language, with the original iliniwek transformed via French into Illinois. However, this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language itself, in which the word for 'man' is ireniwa and plural 'man' is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also been said to mean "tribe of superior men"., though this is nothing more than a folk etymology. In fact the name "Illinois" derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa "he speaks the regular way". This was then taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe· (pluralized as ilinwe·k). These forms were then borrowed into French, where the /we/ ending acquired the spelling -ois. The current form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s. The Illinois's name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms.
History
Pre-European
Indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years. The Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrated 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. They built more than 100 mounds and a Woodhenge in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources.
The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance among several tribes. There were about 25,000 Illinois Indians in 1700, but systematic attacks and warfare by the Iroquois reduced their numbers by 90%. Gradually, members of the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes came in from the east and north. In the American Revolution, the Illinois and Potawatomi supported the American colonists' cause.
European exploration
