Illinois IL --NOY ) is a state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of the United States.
Illinois has been noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub.For decades, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world’s busiest airports.Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics.
Following increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes after the construction of the Erie Canal, Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River at one of the few natural harbors on the southern section of Lake Michigan. John Deere’s invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois’s rich prairie into some of the world’s most productive and valuable farmland, 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. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in the state, including Chicago, who founded the city’s famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago, the center of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, is now recognized as a global alpha-level city.
