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Northern Illinois | |
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 Chicago, Illinois | |
 Counties that are colored red are considered a part of the Northern Illinois region. | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Illinois |
| Largest city | Chicago |
| Population | 9.7 million |
Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. [1] [2] The region is by far the most populous of Illinois, with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010.
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Northern Illinois is dominated by the metropolitan areas of Chicago, the Quad Cities, and Rockford, which contain a majority (over 75%) of Illinois' population and economic activity, including numerous Fortune 500 companies and a heavy manufacturing, commercial, retail, service, and office based economy. Much of the economic activity of the region is centered in the Chicago Loop, the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor, and the Golden Corridor. However, rural sections of this region are highly productive agriculturally, and are part of the Corn Belt. The headquarters for John Deere farming equipment are located in Moline. Additional smaller cities in this area include Kankakee, LaSalle-Peru, Ottawa, Freeport, Dixon, and Sterling-Rock Falls, which still have predominantly manufacturing and agricultural economies. Northern Illinois is also one of the world's busiest freight railroad and truck traffic corridors.
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Interstate 80 is sometimes referenced as the informal southern boundary of Northern Illinois, and is often used in weather reports as a reference point, as in "south of Interstate 80 will see sleet and rain, but north of Interstate 80 can expect mostly snow."
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Interstate 88 (the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) connects the region, east–west, stretching from the Quad Cities, eastward through Sterling-Rock Falls, Dixon, DeKalb, Aurora, Naperville, and into Chicago. Northern Illinois is also the only region of the state in which there are tollways, which are run by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, another trait separating this region from Central and Southern Illinois.
Northern Illinois University (NIU), in DeKalb, is located at the heart of Northern Illinois and is the state's second largest institute of higher education. According to the Regional History Center at NIU, their area of service to the northern portion of Illinois includes the 18 northernmost counties, excluding Cook, Grundy, Kankakee, Mercer and Rock Island Counties, [3] which are covered by Eastern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, respectively, and University of Illinois at Chicago.
Several major colleges can be found in the Chicago area including Illinois' third largest state school, the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Other notable schools include the Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University, DePaul University, Columbia College, Northeastern Illinois University, and Roosevelt University.
Several liberal arts schools such as Aurora University, Lewis University, North Central College, Elmhurst University, Wheaton College, Concordia University, and North Park University dot the Metropolitan Chicago landscape. Other institutions of higher education are found in Rockford, including Rockford University, Rock Valley College, Northern Illinois University-Rockford, University of Illinois College of Medicine-Rockford, a branch of Rasmussen College, and a branch of Judson University. Other colleges near the Quad Cities include Western Illinois University-Quad Cities and Augustana College.
These schools, along with several others, help to make Northern Illinois a vibrant research area. Such significant developments in science including the creation of the Atomic Bomb and the Fujita Scale were rooted in Northern Illinois institutions.
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Politically, the region is quite diverse, with Cook County and Rock Island County being long-time strongholds for Democrats and north-central Illinois counties (Boone, Ogle, Lee, etc.) being reliable for Republicans. Suburban Chicago counties such as DuPage, Kane, Kendall and McHenry Counties were also very reliably Republican until recently. Some counties, such as Lake, Winnebago and DeKalb, were once Republican strongholds, but are now more evenly divided. Politicians native to the area include Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, J. Dennis Hastert, Donald Rumsfeld, Hillary Clinton, and mayors Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley.
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Culturally, the area is tied heavily to Chicago. Most residents of Northern Illinois tend to support Chicago teams and lean towards the Chicago media market. The major college football program in Northern Illinois is the NIU Huskies. Northern Illinois also has large fanbases for the Illinois Fighting Illini, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Iowa Hawkeyes, and the Northwestern Wildcats, as well Chicago's professional sports teams such as the Sox, the Cubs, the Bears, the Blackhawks, and the Bulls. In Central and Southern Illinois, residents are tied primarily to St. Louis.
Regional dialects in Northern Illinois vary from those in other parts of Illinois. Surprisingly, different areas in Northern Illinois have their own independent cultures. Typically, areas west of Interstate 39 have more ties to Iowa and the Quad Cities area, as that is roughly the location of the westernmost terminus of the Chicago media area. Even dialects within Northern Illinois are different, emphasizing the above. Depending on location and ethnicity, a resident of the Chicago Metropolitan Area may have the stereotypical Chicago dialect, whereas those in more affluent areas, such as Lake County, may have a less easily pinpointed manner of speaking. Those west of McHenry and Kane counties have more stereotypical Midwestern dialects, and might not be able to be distinguished from people in Iowa or Nebraska.
Depending on how close to a specific metropolitan area a county is, their culture and media reflect that of the metro area. Areas such as the Ottawa, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area have a comfortable mix of culture from the Chicago area, Quad Cities area, and Peoria, perhaps due to its location in the center of the region.
Northern Illinois is divisible into subregions.
The Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Chicago, Illinois, and its suburbs. It is the area that is closely linked to the city through geographic, social, economic, and cultural ties.
Chicago ( /ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/ ) is the third most populous city in the United States, after New York City and Los Angeles. With 2.7 million residents, [4] it is the most populous city in both the U.S. state of Illinois and the American Midwest. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called Chicagoland , is home to 9.5 million people and is the third-largest in the United States. [5] Chicago is the seat of Cook County, although a small part of the city extends into DuPage County.
The collar counties are the five counties of Illinois that border on Chicago's Cook County. The collar counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will) are tied to Chicago economically, but, like many suburban areas in the United States, have very different political leanings than does the core city. Chicago has long been a Democratic stronghold, and the collar counties are known for being historically Republican strongholds.
While the demographics of these suburban Chicago counties are fairly typical for American metropolitan areas, the term is apparently unique to this area. [6] Because Chicago is so firmly entrenched in the Democratic column, and rural Downstate Illinois is so overwhelmingly Republican, the collar counties are routinely cited as being the key to any statewide election. [7] [8] [9] However, that conventional wisdom was challenged by the fact that in 2010 Democrat Pat Quinn became governor while winning only Cook, St. Clair, Jackson and Alexander counties. [10] All five collar counties went Republican, so the key to winning that gubernatorial election was simply winning Cook County, but by a wide enough margin to overwhelm the rest of the state.
While the term is perhaps most often employed in political discussions, that is not its exclusive use. [11] [12] Barack Obama used the term in his speech before the Democratic National Convention in 2004. [13]
The Fox Valley, also commonly known as the Fox River Valley, is a suburban and exurban region within Illinois along the western edge of the Chicago suburbs. This region centers on the Fox River of Illinois and Wisconsin. Around 1 million people live in this area. Native American tribes that lived near the Fox River included the Potawatomi, Sac, and Fox tribes. Some of cities in the Fox River Valley are part of the rust belt. Within this region is Aurora, the second largest city in the state, Elgin, and the nearby cities of Batavia, St. Charles, and Geneva, which have been known as "the Tri-City area" since the early 20th century.
Northwestern Illinois is generally considered to consist of the following area: Jo Daviess County, Carroll County, Whiteside County, Stephenson County, Winnebago County, Ogle County, and Lee County. Northwestern Illinois borders the states of Iowa to the west and Wisconsin to the north.
The Rockford Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of four counties in north-central Illinois, anchored by the city of Rockford. As of the 2010 census, the MSA had a population of 349,431.
The Quad Cities [14] [15] [16] is a group of five cities [17] straddling the Mississippi River on the Iowa–Illinois boundary, in the United States. These cities, Davenport and Bettendorf (in Iowa) and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline (in Illinois), are the center of the Quad Cities Metropolitan Area, which, as of 2012, had a population estimate of 382,630 and a CSA population of 474,226, making it the 90th largest CSA in the nation. [18] [19] The Quad Cities is midway between Minneapolis and St. Louis, north and south, and Chicago and Des Moines, east and west. The area is the largest 300-mile market west of Chicago. [20]
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-most land area. Its largest urban areas include Chicago and the Metro East of Greater St. Louis, as well as Peoria, Rockford, Champaign–Urbana, and Springfield, the state's capital.
The Quad Cities is a region of cities in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are the center of the Quad Cities metropolitan area, a region within the Mississippi River Valley, which as of 2023 had a population estimate of 467,817 and a Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population of 474,019, making it the 90th-largest CSA in the nation.
Will County is a county in the northeastern part of the state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 696,355, an increase of 2.8% from 677,560 in 2010, making it Illinois's fourth-most populous county. The county seat is Joliet. Will County is one of the five collar counties of the Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL–IN–WI Metropolitan Statistical Area. The portion of Will County around Joliet uses area codes 815 and 779, while 630 and 331 are for far northern Will County and 708 is for central and eastern Will County.
Scott County is a county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 174,669, making it the third-most populous county in Iowa. The county seat is Davenport.
Rock Island County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois, bounded on the west by the Mississippi River. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 144,672. Its county seat is Rock Island; its largest city is neighboring Moline. Rock Island County is one of the four counties that make up the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Moline is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities at the confluence of the Rock and Mississippi rivers, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois and the cities of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa. The Quad Cities had a population of 384,324 in 2020. The city is the ninth-most populous in Illinois outside the Chicago metropolitan area.
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, United States. Located in far northern Illinois on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County. The population was 148,655 at the 2020 census, making Rockford the fifth-most populous city in Illinois as well as the state's most populous city outside of the Chicago metropolitan area. It anchors the Rockford metropolitan area, which had 338,798 residents in 2020.
The Chicago metropolitan area, also referred to as the Greater Chicago Area and Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the Midwest, containing the City of Chicago along with its surrounding suburbs and satellite cities. Encompassing 10,286 square mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hinterland, that span 13 counties across northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The MSA had a 2020 census population of 9,618,502 and the combined statistical area, which spans 19 counties and additionally extends into southeast Wisconsin, had a population of nearly 10 million people. The Chicago area is the third largest metropolitan area in the United States and the fourth largest metropolitan area in North America, and the largest in the Great Lakes megalopolis. Its urban area is one of the forty largest in the world.
Illinois is in the midwestern United States. Surrounding states are Wisconsin to the north, Iowa and Missouri to the west, Kentucky to the east and south, and Indiana to the east. Illinois also borders Michigan, but only via a northeastern water boundary in Lake Michigan. Nearly the entire western boundary of Illinois is the Mississippi River, except for a few areas where the river has changed course. Illinois' southeastern and southern boundary is along the Wabash River and the Ohio River, whereas its northern boundary and much of its eastern boundary are straight survey lines. Illinois has a maximum north–south distance of 390 miles (630 km) and 210 miles (340 km) east-west. Its total area is 57,918 square miles (150,010 km2).
WQPT-TV, virtual channel 24, is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to Moline, Illinois, United States, serving the Quad Cities area of northwestern Illinois and southeastern Iowa. The station is owned by Western Illinois University-Quad Cities. WQPT-TV's studios are located at Riverfront Hall on the WIU-QC campus in Moline, and its transmitter is located in Orion, Illinois. Master control is based at fellow PBS member WTVP in Peoria, which also has an agreement with WILL-TV in Champaign.
Northwestern Illinois is a geographic region of the state of Illinois within the USA.
The 2008 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 4, 2008, and was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 21 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 2000 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 7, 2000, and was part of the 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 22 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
National Weather Service Chicago, currently based in Romeoville, Illinois, is a weather forecast office responsible for monitoring weather conditions for 23 counties in Northern Illinois, the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. The Army Signal Service established the first federal weather office in the region in Chicago on October 15, 1870. During May 1894 the Chicago Weather Bureau was given a new forecast area extending from the Great Lakes region all the way to the Rocky Mountains. The current National Weather Service Chicago is located in Romeoville and is in charge of issuing local forecasts and weather warnings for the Chicago area. It is one of only two National Weather Service offices in Illinois, the other being National Weather Service Central Illinois in Lincoln, Illinois. The National Weather Service Chicago forecast office is located adjacent to the Lewis University Airport in Romeoville, Illinois.
Collar counties is a colloquialism for DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties, the five counties of Illinois that border Cook County, which is home to Chicago. The collar counties are part of the Chicago metropolitan area and comprise many of the area's suburbs. While Lake County, Indiana, also borders Cook County, it is not typically included in the phrase "Collar Counties" due to different socioeconomic characteristics and positionality.
Downstate Illinois refers to the part of the U.S. state of Illinois south or outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is in the northeast corner of the state and has been dominant in state history, politics, and culture.
Greater Quad Cities, IA–IL is a nickname for the Davenport–Moline, IA–IL Combined Statistical Area, an area that is made up of four counties in Iowa and three in Illinois. The statistical area includes one metropolitan areas and two micropolitan area. As of the 2010 Census, the CSA had a population of 471,551.
Marquee Sports Network is a regional sports network operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group and the Chicago Cubs, launched on February 22, 2020. It is devoted exclusively to Cubs baseball, replacing a trio of channels as the exclusive broadcaster of Cubs games not shown on national TV.
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