Official name	City of Chicago
Settlement type	City
Nickname	The Windy City, The Second City, Chi-Town, Hog Butcher for the World, City of Big Shoulders, The City That Works, White City, and others found at List of nicknames for Chicago
Motto	(''City in a Garden''), Make Big Plans (Make No Small Plans), I Will
Named for	("Wild onion")
Website	cityofchicago.org
Image seal	Chicago city seal.png
Map caption	Location in the Chicago metropolitan area and Illinois
Pushpin map	USA2
Pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	US-IL
Unit pref	Imperial
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision type2	Counties
Subdivision name	USA
Subdivision name1
Subdivision name2	Cook, DuPage
Government type	Mayor–council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Rahm Emanuel (D)
Leader title1	City Council
Leader name1
Leader title2	State House
Leader name2
Leader title3	State Senate
Leader name3
Leader title4	U.S. House
Leader name4
Area magnitude	1 E+8
Area total sq mi	234.0
Area total km2	606.1
Area land sq mi	227.2
Area water sq mi	6.9
Area water percent	3.0
Area urban sq mi	2122.8
Area metro sq mi	10874
Population as of	2010 Census
Population total	2,695,598
Population rank	3rd US
Population urban	8711000
Population metro	9461105
Population density sq mi	11864.4
Population density km2	4447.4
Population demonym	Chicagoan
Timezone	CST
Utc offset	−6
Timezone dst	CDT
Utc offset dst	−5
Area code	312, 773, 872
Elevation ft	597
Latns	N
Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Longew	W
Established title	Settled
Established date	1770s
Established title2	Incorporated
Established date2	March 4, 1837
Footnotes	}}

Chicago ( or , local pronunciation ) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the USA, after New York City and Los Angeles. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland," is the 27th most populous urban agglomeration in the world, the largest in the Great Lakes Megalopolis, and the third largest in the United States, home to an estimated 9.5 million people spread across the US states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California.

Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, the city retains its status as a major hub for industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. , the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. As of 2010, Chicago's metropolitan area has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amongst world metropolitan areas.

The city is a center for services, business and finance and is listed as one of the world's top ten Global Financial Centers. The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Chicago as an "alpha world city". In a 2010 survey collaboration between Foreign Policy and A.T Kearney ranking cities, Chicago ranked 6th, just after Paris and Hong Kong. The ranking assesses five dimensions: value of capital markets, diversity of human capital, international information resources, international cultural resources, and political influence. Chicago has been ranked by ''Forbes'' as the world's 5th most economically powerful city. Chicago is a stronghold of the Democratic Party and has been home to many influential politicians, including the current President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The city's notoriety expressed in popular culture is found in novels, plays, movies, songs, various types of journals (for example, sports, entertainment, business, trade, and academic), and the news media. Chicago has numerous nicknames, which reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best known include: "Chi-town," "Windy City," "Second City,"|group="footnote"}} and the "City of Big Shoulders."|group="footnote"}} Chicago has also been called "the most American of big cities."

History

During the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples. The 1780s saw the arrival of the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who is believed to be of African and European (French) descent. In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over by some Native Americans in the Treaty of Greenville to the United States for a military post.

In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in the War of 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn. The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were eventually forcibly removed from their land following the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of around 200 at that time. Within seven years it would grow to a population of over 4,000. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837.

The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word ''shikaakwa'', translated as "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, ''Allium tricoccum,'' were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition.

As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city emerged as an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, opened in 1848, which also marked the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. 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 abroad. Manufacturing and retail sectors became dominant among Midwestern cities, influencing the American economy, particularly in meatpacking, with the advent of the refrigerated rail car and the regional centrality of the city's Union Stock Yards.

In the 1850s Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for the nation's presidency at the 1860 Republican National Convention and went on to defeat Douglas in the general election, setting the stage for the American Civil War.

Chicago experienced some of the fastest population growth in the world, requiring infrastructure investments. In February 1856, the Chesbrough plan for the building of Chicago's and the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system was approved by the Common Council. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade. While raising Chicago out of its mud and sewage, and at first improving the health of the city, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, thence into Lake Michigan, polluting the primary source of fresh water for the city. Chicago responded by tunneling two miles (3 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage was largely resolved when the city undertook a major engineering feat. The city reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that water flowed from Lake Michigan into the river, instead of the water flowing from the river into the lake. It began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal leading to the Illinois River which joins the Mississippi River. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed a third of the city, including the entire central business district, Chicago experienced rapid rebuilding and growth. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. Labor conflicts and unrest followed, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's lower classes led Jane Addams to be a co-founder of Hull House in 1889. Programs developed there became a model for the new field of social work.

During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago and the state of Illinois together attained national stature as leaders in the movement to improve public health. City and state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, small pox and yellow fever were not only passed, but also enforced. These in turn became templates for public health reform in many other states. The city invested in many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate and driving force for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D., who established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866, created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with festering, shallow graves, and helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health in 1867 in response to an outbreak of cholera. 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 19th century, Chicago became an important railroad center and in 1883 the standardized system of North American Time Zones was adopted by the general time convention of railway managers in Chicago. This gave the continent its uniform system for telling time.

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 was founded in 1892 on the same South Side location. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects Washington and Jackson Parks.

20th and 21st centuries

The 1920s brought notoriety to Chicago as gangsters, including the notorious Al Capone, battled each other and law enforcement on the city streets during the Prohibition era. Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s.

The 1920s also saw a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the South. Between 1910 and 1930, the black population of Chicago increased from 44,103 to 233,903. Arriving in the hundreds of thousands during the Great Migration, the newcomers had an immense cultural impact. It was during this wave that Chicago became a center for jazz, with King Oliver leading the way.

In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition Worlds Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.

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.

Mayor Richard J. Daley was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. Starting in the early 1960s due to blockbusting, many white residents, as in most American cities, left the city for the suburbs. Whole neighborhoods were completely changed based on race. Structural changes in industry caused heavy losses of jobs for lower skilled workers. In 1966, James Bevel, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Raby led the Chicago Open Housing Movement, 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, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, including full-scale riots, or in some cases police riots, in city streets. 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, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. When Richard J. Daley died, Michael Anthony Bilandic served as mayor for three years. Bilandic's subsequent loss in a primary election has been attributed to the city's inability to properly plow city streets during a heavy snowstorm. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She popularized the city as a movie location and tourist destination.

In 1983, Harold Washington became the first African American to be elected to the office of mayor, in one of the closest mayoral elections in Chicago. After Washington won the Democratic primary, racial motivations caused a few Democratic alderman and ward committeemen to back the Republican candidate Bernard Epton, who ran on the race-baiting slogan ''Before it's too late''. Washington's term in office saw new attention given to poor and minority neighborhoods. Washington died in office of a heart attack in 1987, shortly after being elected to a second term. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development. After successfully standing for reelection five times and becoming Chicago's longest serving Mayor, Richard M. Daley announced he would step down at the end of his final term in 2011.

On February 23, 2011, former White House chief of staff and congressman Rahm Emanuel won the municipal election to succeed Daley, beating five rivals with 55 percent of the vote. Emanuel was sworn in as Mayor on May 16, 2011.

Geography

Topography

Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan. It sits on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow entirely or partially through Chicago. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, which runs to the west of 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 freighters 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 1833, most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade 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. The lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is a landfill located in the Hegewisch community area on the city's far south side.

The Chicago Loop is the central business district but Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's lakefront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park and Jackson Park. 29 public beaches are also found along the shore. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings can be found close to the waterfront.

An informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area is ''Chicagoland'', used primarily by copywriters, advertising agencies, and traffic reporters. There is no precise definition for the term "Chicagoland," but it generally means the city and its suburbs together. The Chicago Tribune, which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter 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 defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

Climate

The city lies within the humid continental climate zone, and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with a July daily average of . In a normal summer temperatures exceed on 21 days. Winters are cold, snowy, and windy, with some sunny days, and with a January average of . Temperatures often (43 days) stay below freezing for an entire day, and lows below occur on eight nights per year. Spring and fall are mild seasons with low humidity.

According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on June 1, 1934 and July 11, 1936, both at Midway Airport. The lowest temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. The city can experience extreme winter cold spells that may last for several consecutive days.

Cityscape

Architecture

The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these events was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects from New England to the city for construction of the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in Chicago, ushering in the skyscraper era. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense. The nation's two tallest buildings are both located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), and Trump International Hotel and Tower. 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 by Mies van der Rohe, along with many others. The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, and still listed as 20th with its own ZIP code, 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, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Chicago Southland, and Northwest Indiana are clustered. Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found in Chicago. Large swaths of Chicago's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by 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. One of Chicago's suburbs, Oak Park, was home to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.

One of the city's most famous thoroughfares, Western Avenue, is one of the longest urban streets in the world. Other famous streets include Belmont Avenue, Pulaski Road, and Division Street. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's Boulevards and Parkways.

Culture and contemporary life

The city's waterfront allure and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over one-third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods (from Rogers Park 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 villages, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and ''La Villita'' along 26th Street, the Puerto Rican enclave ''Paseo Boricua'' in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, "Greektown" along South Halsted St, "Little Italy" along Taylor St, "Chinatown, Chicago" on the South Side, ''"Polish Patches"'' in Avondale and Belmont-Central, "Little Seoul" around Lawrence Avenue, a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants on Argyle Street, and South Asian (Indian/Pakistani) along Devon Avenue.

Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, and commercial institutions and home to Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions (for example, CBOT, Chicago Fed) are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight block by five block square of city streets that are encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used 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, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.

The North Side is the most densely populated section of the city outside of downtown and many high-rises line this side of the city along the lakefront. Lincoln Park is a park stretching for along the waterfront and containing the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North neighborhood features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. As a Polonia center, due to the city having a very large Polish population, Chicago celebrates every Labor Day weekend at the Taste of Polonia Festival in the Jefferson Park area. The Chicago Cubs play in the North Side's Wrigleyville district.

The South Side is home to the University of Chicago (UC), ranked one of the world's top ten universities; and the Museum of Science and Industry. 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 home 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, running adjacent to the UC. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Day parade. The American automaker Ford Motor Company has an assembly plant located on the South Side, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are here. The Chicago White Sox play in the South Side's Armour Square neighborhood.

The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants of any US city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Puerto Rican Day Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the television production company of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks play on Madison Street.

Entertainment, the arts, and performing arts

Chicago's theatre community spawned modern improvisational theatre. Two renowned comedy troupes emerged—The Second City and I.O. (formerly known as ImprovOlympic). Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (on the city's north side), the Goodman Theatre, and the Victory Gardens Theater. Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at theaters such as Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area.

Classical music offerings include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world, which performs at Symphony Center. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center 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 Park, located north of Chicago, is also a favorite destination for many Chicagoans, with performances occasionally given in Chicago locations such as the Harris Theater. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian. It celebrated fifty years of existence in 2006, and operates as a not-for-profit organization. It is noteworthy for performing the rarely staged Rossini's ''William Tell'' (1986) and Ponchielli's ''I Lituani'' (1981, 1983 and 1991), and also for contributing experienced chorus members to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The opera ''Jūratė and Kastytis'' by Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis was presented in Chicago in 1996.

The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago is home to several other modern and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Other live music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music and is the site of an influential hip-hop scene. In the 1980s, the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts such as Lollapalooza, the Intonation Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival.

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, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Today Robert Guinan paints gritty realistic portraits of Chicago people which are popular in Paris, although he is little known in Chicago itself.

Chicago is home to a number of large, outdoor works by well known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, ''Miró's Chicago'', ''Flamingo'' and ''Flying Dragon'' by Alexander Calder, ''Monument with Standing Beast'' by Jean Dubuffet, ''Batcolumn'' by Claes Oldenburg, ''Cloud Gate'' by Anish Kapoor, ''Crown Fountain'' by Jaume Plensa, and the ''Four Seasons'' mosaic by Marc Chagall.

Tourism

, Chicago attracted 32.4 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.7 million domestic business travelers and 1.3 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile 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 destination. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, 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, there is the reflective ''Cloud Gate'' sculpture. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. 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 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, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Its tall Ferris wheel is one of the most visited landmarks in the Midwest, attracting about 8 million people annually.

In 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, 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 DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The top activity while visitors tour Chicago for leisure is entertainment, approximately 33% of all leisure travelers. Facilities such as McCormick Place and the Chicago Theatre contribute to this percentage.

Parks

When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto ''Urbs in Horto'', a Latin phrase which translates into English as "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of 552 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 33 sand Chicago beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons, and 10 bird and wildlife gardens. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it second only to Central Park in New York City in number of visitors. With berths for more than 5,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system; even larger than systems in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, or Miami. 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 on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park in a section 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 periphery, home to both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.

Cuisine

Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties, all of which reflect the city's ethnic and working class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza, This style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is popular in the city as well.

The Chicago-style hot dog, typically a Vienna Beef dog loaded with an array of fixings that often includes neon green pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt all on a S. Rosen's poppy seed bun. Ketchup on a Chicago hot dog is frowned upon by enthusiasts of the Chicago-style dog, but may prefer to add giardiniera.

There are several distinctly Chicago sandwiches, among them the Italian beef sandwich, which is thinly sliced beef slowly simmered 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. Another is the Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa – on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.

Ethnically originated creations include chicken Vesuvio, with roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. Another is the Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito, a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. There is also the tamale with chile, Mother-in-law sandwich. Yet another is the Greek saganaki, an appetizer of cheese served flambé at the table.

The Taste of Chicago in Grant Park runs from the final week of June through Fourth of July weekend. Hundreds of local restaurants take part.

A number of well-known chefs have restaurants in Chicago, including Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination."

The city is home to 23 Michelin starred restaurants, with Alinea and L2O receiving three stars.

Chicago features a wide selection of vegetarian cuisine, with 22 fully vegetarian restaurants and many vegetarian-friendly establishments within the city.

Religion

Due to its cosmopolitan history, Chicago has a rich blend of religious heritage as displayed by the architecture and institutions throughout the city. Christianity is predominant among the city's population represented by the various denominations including Catholic, Protestant, Oriental and Orthodox churches. The city also includes adherents of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and the Bahá'í, among others. Because of this diversity, Chicago has a wealth of sacred architecture.

Through the city's size and notoriety, it has gained recognition as a religious center. The city played host to the first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993. Chicago contains many theological institutions, which include seminaries and colleges such as the Moody Bible Institute and DePaul University. Chicago is the seat of numerous religious leaders from a host of bishops of a wide array of Christian denominations as well as other religions. In the northern suburb of Wilmette, Illinois, is the Bahá'í Temple, the only temple for the Bahá'í Faith in North America.

Numerous prominent religious leaders have visited the city, including the Lama and Mother Teresa. Pope John Paul II visited Chicago in 1979 as part of his first trip to the United States after being elected to the Papacy in 1978.

Sports

Chicago was named the ''Best Sports City'' in the United States by ''The Sporting News'' in 1993, 2006, 2010. The city is home to two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League (NL), who play in Wrigley Field on the North Side, and the Chicago White Sox of the American League (AL), who play in U.S. Cellular 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. The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but are now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field just off the coast of Lake Michigan. The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls took six NBA championships in eight seasons. The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL), who began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six," teams of the National Hockey League (NHL), have won four Stanley Cups. The Blackhawks are the 2010 Stanley Cup champions, and hosted the 2009 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. Both the Bulls and Blackhawks play at the United Center on the Near West Side. The Chicago Rush has been a member of the Arena Football League since 2001 and won ArenaBowl XX. The team plays in suburban Rosemont. Chicago was also home to the Chicago Bruisers, and original member of the AFL. The Chicago Fire are members of Major League Soccer and reside at Toyota Park in suburban Bridgeview, after playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups since their founding in 1997.

While four of the five major franchises have won championships within recent time: The Bears (1985), The Bulls (91, '92, '93, '96, '97, and '98), The White Sox (2005), and The Blackhawks (2010), the Chicago Cubs are known for their drought of over 100 years without a championship (Currently 103 years as of the 2011 MLB Season). The last time the Cubs were in a world series was 1945. Local lore amongst Cubs fans often claims the Curse of the Billy goat is responsible for the drought.

The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for in 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of five World Marathon Majors. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field on Chicago's downtown lakefront. After a months long process that saw the elimination of several American and international cities, Chicago was selected on April 14, 2007, to represent the United States internationally in the bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Chicago had previously hosted the 1959 Pan American Games and the 2006 Gay Games. Chicago was selected to host the 1904 Olympics, but they were transferred to St. Louis to coincide with the World's Fair. On June 4, 2008, the International Olympic Committee narrowed the field further and selected Chicago as one of four candidate cities for the 2016 games. On October 2, 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected instead of Chicago.

Starting just off Navy Pier is Chicago Yacht Club's Race to Mackinac, a offshore sailboat race held each July that is the longest annual freshwater sailing distance race in the world. 2010 marks the 102nd running of the "Mac".

At the collegiate level, the greater Chicago area and has four national athletic conferences represented, the Big East Conference with DePaul University, and the Big Ten Conference with Northwestern University in Evanston are premier national conferences. Loyola University Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago play Division I sports as members of the Horizon League.

Literature

Chicago literature found its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. Consequently, most notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. Writers such as Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, Stuart Dybek, Carl Sandburg, James T. Farrell, Upton Sinclair, Saul Bellow, John Guzlowski, Sandra Cisneros Nelson Algren and Finley Peter Dunne have all drawn the city's literary portrait in diverse ways, united by the fact that their observations brought the world's attention to focus on Chicago.

Media

The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM, WLS, WMAQ and WFLD, respectively). WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. The city is also the home of several talk shows, including ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' on WLS-TV, while Chicago Public Radio produces programs such as PRI's ''This American Life'' and NPR's ''Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' Chicago's PBS station can be seen on WTTW, producer of shows, such as ''Sneak Previews'', ''The Frugal Gourmet'', ''Lamb Chop's Play-Along'' and ''The McLaughlin Group'', just to name a few and WYCC.

There are two major daily newspapers published in Chicago, the ''Chicago Tribune'' and the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', with the former having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as ''Chicago'', the ''Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News)'', ''Draugas'' (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the ''Chicago Reader'', the ''SouthtownStar'', the ''Chicago Defender'', the ''Daily Herald'', ''Newcity'', ''StreetWise'' and the ''Windy City Times''. The entertainment and cultural magazine ''Time Out Chicago'' is also published in the city.

Chicago is a filming-friendly location. Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed in the city, most notably ''The Blues Brothers'', ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'', ''Home Alone'', ''The Fugitive'', ''Blade: Trinity'', ''I, Robot'', ''Wanted'', ''Batman Begins'', ''The Dark Knight'', and ''Transformers: Dark of the Moon''.

Chicago has also been the setting for many popular television shows. Chicago-based TV shows include the situation comedies ''Perfect Strangers'' and its spinoff ''Family Matters'' and ''The Bob Newhart Show''. The city served as the venue for the medical dramas ''ER'' and ''Chicago Hope'', as well as the science fiction drama series ''Early Edition''. Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: ''Cook County Jail'' and the Chicago version of ''Cash Cab''.

Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including ''Beyond the Beltway'' with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.

Economy

Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—approximately US$506 billion according to 2007 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. 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 six out of the seven years from 2001 to 2008. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009, Chicago placed 9th 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, John Farwell, Morris Selz, Julius Rosenwald 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 US. The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city is also home to major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX) and the Dow Jones Indexes. Perhaps due to the influence of the Chicago school of economics, the city also has markets trading unusual contracts such as emissions (on the Chicago Climate Exchange) and equity style indices (on the U.S. Futures Exchange). Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.

The city and its surrounding metropolitan area are home to the second largest labor pool in the United States with approximately 4.25 million workers. In addition, the state of 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 one Dow 30 company: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001. Two more Dow 30 companies, Kraft Foods and McDonalds are in Chicago suburbs, as are Sears Holdings Corporation and the technology spin-offs of Motorola. Chicago is also home to United Continental Holdings and its United Airlines.

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, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare Financial Services division of General Electric. 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. Though 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 home to a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, 37signals, Groupon, and Feedburner.

Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, as home to 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 home to the Schwinn Bicycle Company.

Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. 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) in number of conventions hosted annually.

Demographics

During its first 100 years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, less 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 4000. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 in 1850 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close 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.

As of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households residing within Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is also one of the nation's most densely populated major cities. The racial composition of the city was:

45.0% White (31.7% non-Hispanic whites)

32.9% Black or African American

13.4% from some other race

5.5% Asian (1.6% Chinese, 1.1% Indian, 1.1% Filipino, 0.4% Korean, 0.3% Pakistani, 0.3% Vietnamese, 0.2% Japanese, 0.1% Thai)

2.7% from two or more races

0.5% American Indian

Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian)

Based on Census data from 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $38,625, and the median income for a family was $42,724. Males had a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. About 16.6% of families and 19.6% of the population lived below the poverty line.

According to the 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for Total Ancestry Reported, for the city of Chicago, the majority of residents, or 64% of 2,986,974 people, reported their ancestry as "other groups". Of the 36% of residents that reported their ancestries in groups that were measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest groups, based on the total population, were: Irish (6.6%); German (6.5%); Polish (5.8%); Italian (3.5%); Assyrian (3.5%); English (2.0%); Sub-Saharan African (1.2%); American (1.1%); Filipino (1.0%); Russian (0.97%); Swedish (0.91%); French (except Basque) (0.9%); Arab (0.7%); Greek (0.6%); Dutch (0.5%); Norwegian (0.5%); Scottish (0.5%); European (0.5%); West Indian (0.5%); Lithuanian (0.4%); Ukrainian (0.38%); Czech (0.4%); Hungarian (0.3%); Scotch-Irish (0.2%); Welsh (0.2%); Danish (0.2%); French Canadian (0.2%); Slovak (0.2%); British (0.1%); Swiss (0.1%); and Portuguese (0.1%). The city also has a large Assyrian population numbering between 80,000–120,000, and it is the location of the seat of the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV.

Law and government

Chicago is the county seat of Cook County. The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and 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 mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the clerk and the treasurer.

The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council enacts local ordinances and approves the city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions.

During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization dominated by ethnic ward-heelers. 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 "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when 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 the rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding. Chicago contains close to 25% of the state's population, and as such, eight of Illinois' 19 U.S. Representatives have part of Chicago in their districts.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's mastery of machine politics preserved the Chicago Democratic Machine long after the demise 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. From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic 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 if needed. On May 16, 2011, Rahm Emanuel was sworn in as the 55th mayor of Chicago, ending a 22-year era led by Richard M. Daley.

City planning

Chicago has four main sections: Downtown (which contains the Loop), the North Side, the South Side, and the West Side. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white strips. These sections can further be informally subdivided or grouped, for example as shown on the map (right). Further sectional references are the Northwest side and the Southwest side. 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 neighborhoods.

The central commercial area often is portrayed, as in the map at right, to include parts of Near North Side and Near South Side, as well as the Loop. 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 the University of Chicago and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.

Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plat. Streets following the Public Land Survey System 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. The grid's regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Indian trails, also cross the city. Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.

Crime

Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million people (resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 100,000), and again in 1992 with 943 murders, resulting in a murder rate of 34 per 100,000. Chicago, along with other major US cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, eventually recording 448 homicides in 2004, the lowest total since 1965 (15.65 per 100,000.) Chicago's homicide tally remained steady throughout 2005, 2006, and 2007 with 449, 452, and 435 respectively.

In 2008, murders rebounded to 510, 2nd highest in the country, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. For 2009 the murder count was down about 10% for the year, to 458.

2010 saw Chicago's murder rate at its lowest levels since 1965. Overall, 435 homicides were recorded for the year, a 5% decrease from 2009.

Education

Schools and libraries

There are 675 public schools, 394 private schools, 83 colleges, and 88 libraries in Chicago. 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 9 selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools. They are designed to meet the needs of Chicago’s most academically advanced students. The schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number two. The Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The oldest magnet school in the City of Chicago, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, was opened in 1975, and was attended by the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,000 students (2005 stat.), ranks as the third largest in the US

Chicago's private schools are largely run by religious groups, with the two largest systems being the Catholic and Lutheran schools. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates the city's Catholic schools, including the Jesuit preparatory schools. Some of the more prominent Catholic schools are: De La Salle Institute, Gordon Technical High School, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, St. Scholastica Academy, Mount Carmel High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School. In addition to Chicago's network of 32 Lutheran schools, there are also several private schools run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Additionally, a number of private schools are run in a completely secular educational environment, such as the Latin School of Chicago, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the Francis W. Parker School, the Chicago City Day School in Lake View, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. Chicago is also home of the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts, such as Media Arts, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Musical Theatre and Theatre.

The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.

Colleges and universities

Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities that are in the city proper or in the immediate environs. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by ''U.S. News & World Report''. Top Universities in Chicago are: University of Chicago; Northwestern University; DePaul University; Illinois Institute of Technology; and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other selective national universities include Loyola University Chicago;. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago; East–West University; National-Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Columbia College Chicago; Robert Morris University; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Dominican University; and Rush University.

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, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.

Chicago proper also has a large concentration of graduate schools, seminaries and theological schools such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Catholic Theological Union, Moody Bible Institute and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Public health

Although Chicago as a whole is in compliance with federal laws regulating particulates many areas of the city have high concentrations of soot from diesel exhaust.

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.

Rail

Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. As of 2002, 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). About one-third of the country's freight trains pass through the city, making it a major national bottleneck. Announced in 2003, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) initiative is using about $1.5B in private railroad, state, local, and federal funding to improve rail infrastructure in the region to reduce freight rail congestion by about one third. This is also expected to have a positive impact on passenger rail and road congestion, as well as create new greenspace.

Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. Many Amtrak long distance services originate from Union Station. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. 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 ultimately never completed.

Metra provides commuter rail service. It has 11 lines radiating north, west and south.

Expressways

Nine interstate highways 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. When referring to the expressways, local citizens tend to use the names of the expressways rather than the interstate numbers, primarily because the names denote certain sections of the interstate(s).

The Kennedy Expressway and the Dan Ryan Expressway are the busiest state maintained routes in the City of Chicago and its suburbs.

Public transportation

The 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 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24 hour service which makes Chicago one of the few cities in the world (and one of only three cities in the United States of America) to offer rail service every day of the year for 24 hours around the clock. A new rapid transit line, the Circle Line, is also in the planning stages by the CTA.

Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and its suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago. 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).

Cycling

Chicago offers a wide array of bicycle transportation facilities and events, including several miles of on-street bike lanes, 10,000 bike racks, of bike route signage, a state-of-the-art central bicycle commuter station in Millennium Park and the annual Bike Chicago festival. The network has of on-street bike lanes and of off-street trails. Bicycles are permitted on CTA trains and their fleet of over 2,000 buses that have been equipped with racks that carry bikes. The successes of the Bike Program are due in large part to Mayor Daley's leadership and the incorporation of bicycling into the mandates and programs of the Chicago Department of Transportation, CTA, Chicago Park District and the Mayor's Office of Special Events, in partnership with the Active Transportation Alliance. The Chicago Park District maintains an multi-use path, popular with bicycle commuters, along Lake Michigan called the Lakefront Trail.

Walkability

A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the fourth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.

Air transportation

Chicago is served by Midway International Airport on the South Side and O'Hare International Airport, the world's third busiest airport, on the far Northwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic (due to government enforced flight caps). 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 nearby Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, serve as alternate Chicago area airports. Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's second-largest airline by revenue-passenger-kilometers and the city is a hub for American Airlines.In 2010 United Airlines merged with Continental to create the world's largest airline, moving ahead of Delta, known as United Continental Holdings with world headquarters in Chicago. Midway is a hub for low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines.

Port

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.

Facilities

Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,390,000 square feet) 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 29,000 square meters (315,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3000 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 zone #22, which extends from Chicago's city limits.

Infrastructure

Utilities

Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders 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) 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 started the installation of wind turbines on government buildings with the aim to promote the use of 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 Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert certain refuse from landfills. In the fall of 2007 the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling similar to that of other cities due to low participation rates in the blue bag program. After completion of the pilot the city will determine whether to roll it out to all wards.

Health systems

Chicago is home to the Illinois Medical District, on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the largest trauma-center in the city.

The University of Chicago Medical Center was ranked the 14th best hospital in the country by ''U.S. News & World Report''. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.

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 2010–11; the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by ''U.S. News & World Report''; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, which is currently under construction.

The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and 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 and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in 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, American Dietetic Association, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Hospital Association, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.

Telecommunications

Using only 3% of the total available bandwidth capacity and 13% of the available fiber pairs, Chicago area data centers move data for local, area, regional and international networks.

Sister cities

Chicago has 28 Sister Cities. Like Chicago, many of them are or were, the second city of their country, or they are the main city of a country that has had many immigrants settle in Chicago. Paris is a ''Partner City'', due to the one sister city policy of their respective French commune.

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-Kiev sister cities program.

Partner City Paris (France) ''1996'' 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'' Kiev (Ukraine) ''1991'' Mexico City (Mexico) ''1991'' Toronto (Canada) ''1991'' Birmingham (United Kingdom) ''1993'' Vilnius (Lithuania) ''1993'' Hamburg (Germany) ''1994'' Petah Tikva (Israel) ''1994'' Athens (Greece) ''1997'' Durban (South Africa) ''1997'' Galway (Ireland) ''1997'' Moscow (Russia) ''1997'' Lucerne (Switzerland) ''1998'' Delhi (India) ''2001'' Amman (Jordan) ''2004'' São Paulo (Brazil) ''2004'' Belgrade (Serbia) ''2005'' Lahore (Pakistan) ''2007'' Busan (South Korea) ''2007'' Bogotá (Colombia) ''2009''

==Bibliography==

See also

List of cities with most skyscrapers

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 South Side Chicago

National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side Chicago

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

City of Chicago official website

City of Chicago data portal

Explore Chicago: City of Chicago's official tourism website

Category:Cities in Illinois Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:County seats in Illinois Category:Irish-American culture Category:Polish American history Category:Italian-American culture Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:Populated places established in 1833 Category:Populated places in Cook County, Illinois Category:Populated places on the Great Lakes Category:Populated places in the United States with African American plurality populations Category:United States places with Orthodox Jewish communities Category:Populated places in DuPage County, Illinois

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fullname	State of Illinois
electoralvotes	21
flag	Flag of Illinois.svg
flaglink	Flag
seal	Seal of Illinois.svg
name	Illinois
nickname	Land of Lincoln; The Prairie State
motto	State sovereignty, national union
former	Illinois Territory
demonym	Illinoisan
officiallang	English
languages	English (80.8%)Spanish (10.9%)Polish (1.6%)Other (6.7%)
map	Map_of_USA_IL.svg
capital	Springfield
largestcity	Chicago
largestmetro	Chicago metropolitan area
governor	Pat Quinn (D)
lieutenant governor	Sheila Simon (D)
legislature	General Assembly
upperhouse	Senate
lowerhouse	House of Representatives
senators	Dick Durbin (D)Mark Kirk (R)
Representative	11 Republicans, 8 Democrats
postalabbreviation	IL, Ill.,
borderingstates	Indiana, Iowa, KentuckyMissouri, Wisconsin
arearank	25th
totalareaus	57,914
totalarea	149,998
landareaus	55,593
landarea	143,968
waterareaus	2,320
waterarea	5,981
pcwater	4.0/ Negligible
poprank	5th
2000pop (old)	12,831,970
| 2000pop	12,830,632 (2010)
densityrank	12th
2000densityus	223.4
2000density	86.27
medianhouseholdincome	$54,124
incomerank	17
admittanceorder	21st
admittancedate	December 3, 1818
timezone	Central: UTC-6/-5
latitude	36° 58′ N to 42° 30′ N
longitude	87° 30′ W to 91° 31′ W
widthus	210
width	340
lengthus	395
length	629
highestpoint	Charles Mound
highestelevus	1,235
highestelev	377
meanelevus	600
meanelev	182
lowestpoint	Mississippi River
lowestelevus	279
lowestelev	85
isocode	US-IL
website	www.illinois.gov }}

name	Illinois
Flag	Flag of Illinois.svg
Flagsize	100px
Seal	Seal of Illinois.svg
Sealsize	100px
amphibian	Eastern Tiger Salamander
bird	Northern Cardinal
butterfly	Monarch Butterfly
fish	Bluegill
flower	Violet
grass	Big Bluestem
insect
mammal	White-tailed deer
reptile	Painted Turtle
tree	White oak
dance	Square dance
food	Gold Rush Apple Popcorn
fossil	Tully Monster
mineral	Fluorite
poem	The Death Poem
slogan	"Land of Lincoln"
soil	Drummer silty clay loam
song	"Illinois"
route marker	Illinois 19.svg|300px
quarter	2003 IL Proof.png|100px|Illinois quarter
quarterreleasedate	2003 }}

Illinois ( ) is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the St. Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. As the "most average state", Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.

In the 1810s, settlers began arriving from Kentucky. In 1818 Illinois achieved statehood. The state's population originally grew from south to north. 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. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.

Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while living in IllinoisAbraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. Additionally, President Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was actually the only US President born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan, ''Land of Lincoln'', which has been displayed on its license plates since 1954.

Name

"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French missionaries and 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 'men' is ''ireniwaki''. The name ''Illiniwek'' has also been said to mean "tribe of superior men", though this is nothing more than a false 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

Native Americans lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. 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. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central Illinois River valley, one-third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries."

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

French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. In 1680, other French explorers constructed a fort at the site of present day Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. As a result of this French exploration, Illinois was part of the French empire until 1763, when it passed to the British with their conquest of New France. The small French settlements continued; a few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but there were no British or American settlers. In 1778, George Rogers Clark claimed the Illinois Country for Virginia. The area was ceded by Virginia to the new United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory.

19th century

The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia.

During the discussions leading up to Illinois' admission to the Union, the proposed northern boundary of the state was moved twice. The original provisions of the Northwest Ordinance had specified a boundary that would have been tangent to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Such a boundary would have actually left Illinois with no shoreline on Lake Michigan at all. However, as Indiana had successfully been granted a 10-mile northern extension of its boundary to provide it with a usable lakefront, the original bill for Illinois statehood, submitted to Congress on January 23, 1818, stipulated a northern border at the same latitude as Indiana's which is defined as north of the southernmost extremity of Lake Michigan. But the Illinois delegate, Nathaniel Pope, wanted more. Pope lobbied to have the boundary moved further north, and the final bill passed by Congress did just such; it included an amendment to shift the border to 42° 30' north, which is approximately north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added to the state, including the lead mining region near Galena. More importantly, it added nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Chicago River. Pope and others envisioned a canal which would connect the Chicago and Illinois rivers, and thusly, connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi.

In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, headquartered in a small building rented by the state. In 1819, Vandalia became the capital, and over the next 18 years, three separate buildings were built to serve successively as the capitol building. In 1837, the state legislators representing Sangamon County, under the leadership of state representative Abraham Lincoln, succeeded in having the capital moved to Springfield, where a fifth capitol building was constructed. A sixth capitol building was erected in 1867, which continues to serve as the Illinois capitol today.

Though ostensibly a "free state", Illinois had slavery. The French owned black slaves as late as the 1820s. Slavery was nominally banned by the Northwest Ordnance, but that was not enforced. When Illinois became a sovereign state in 1818, the Ordnance no longer applied, and there were about 900 slaves there. As the southern part of the state, known as "Egypt", was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was hostile to free blacks and allowed settlers to bring slaves with them for labor. Most citizens were opposed to allowing blacks as permanent residents, and efforts to make slavery official failed in 1822. Nevertheless, some slaves were brought in seasonally or as house servants. The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853, John A. Logan helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state.

In 1832, the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and current day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox (Meskwaki) and Kickapoo Indian tribes. The Indians withdrew to Iowa; when they attempted to return, they were defeated by U.S. militia and forced back to Iowa.

The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north and this may have contributed to its name: "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.

By 1839, the Mormons had founded a utopian city called Nauvoo. Located in Hancock County, along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished and soon rivaled Chicago for the position of the state's largest city. But in 1844, the Mormon leader Joseph Smith was murdered in the Carthage Jail, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Soon afterward, after close to six years of rapid development, Nauvoo saw a rapid decline after the Mormons' new leadership led them out of Illinois in a mass exodus to present-day Utah.

Chicago gained prominence as a Great Lakes port and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois' largest city. With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in the state in the 19th century, Illinois played an important role in the formation of labor unions in the United States. The Pullman Strike and Haymarket Riot in particular greatly influenced the development of the American labor movement. From Sunday, October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned in downtown Chicago, destroying .

In 1847, after lobbying by Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local almshouses.

Civil War

thumb|right|Embarkation of [[Union (American Civil War)|Union troops from Cairo on January 10, 1862]]. During the American Civil War, over 250,000 Illinois men served in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments. The town of Cairo at the southern tip of the state served as a strategically important supply base and training center for the Union army. For several months, both General Grant and Admiral Foote had headquarters in Cairo.

Twentieth century

At the turn of the 20th century, Illinois had a population of nearly 5 million. Bolstered by continued immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by African-Americans from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, Illinois grew and emerged as one of the most important states in the union. By the end of the century, the population had reached 12.4 million.

The Century of Progress World's Fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and Crawford County lead to a boom in 1937, and, by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production. Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (which still exists today as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street).

No state has had a more prominent role than Illinois in the emergence of the nuclear age. As part of the Manhattan Project, the first sustained nuclear chain reaction took place at the University of Chicago in 1942. In 1957, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in United States, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near Batavia, opened a particle accelerator which was the world largest for over forty years. And, with eleven plants currently operating, Illinois leads all states in the amount of electricity generated from nuclear power.

The state's fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document. The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland.

Geography

Boundaries

Illinois' eastern border with Indiana consists of a north-south line at west longitude, from Lake Michigan to the Wabash River, above Post Vincennes. The Wabash River continues as the eastern/southeastern border with Indiana, until the Wabash enters the Ohio River. This marks the beginning of Illinois' southern border with Kentucky, which runs along the northern shoreline of the Ohio River. Its western border with Missouri and Iowa is the Mississippi River. Its northern border with Wisconsin is fixed at north latitude. The northeastern border of Illinois actually lies within Lake Michigan, within which Illinois shares a water boundary with the state of Michigan.

Topography

Though Illinois lies entirely in the Interior Plains, it does have some minor variation in its elevation. In extreme northwestern Illinois, the Driftless Area, a region of unglaciated and therefore higher and more rugged topography, occupies a small part of the state. Charles Mound, located in this region, has the state's highest elevation above sea level at 1,235 feet (376 m). The floodplain on the Mississippi River from Alton to the Kaskaskia River is known as the American Bottom.

Divisions

Illinois has three major geographical divisions. Northern Illinois is dominated by the Chicago metropolitan area; the city of Chicago, its suburbs, and the adjoining exurban area into which the metropolis is expanding. As defined by the federal government, the Chicago metro area includes several counties in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Chicago is a cosmopolitan city, densely populated, industrialized, the transportation hub of the nation, and settled by a wide variety of ethnic groups with a population of 9.8 million people. The city of Rockford, the fourth largest metropolitan area, and the state's third largest city, sits along Interstates 39 and 90 some northwest of Chicago. The Quad Cities region, located along the Mississippi River in northern Illinois, had a population of 379,066 in 2009.

Southward and westward, the second major division is Central Illinois, an area of mostly prairie. Known as the Heart of Illinois, it is characterized by small towns and mid-sized cities. The western section (west of the Illinois River) was originally part of the Military Tract of 1812 and forms the conspicuous western bulge of the state. Agriculture, particularly corn and soybeans, as well as educational institutions and manufacturing centers, figure prominently. Cities include Peoria, the third largest metropolitan area in Illinois at 370,000; Springfield, the state capital; Quincy; Decatur; Bloomington-Normal; and Champaign-Urbana.

The third division is Southern Illinois, comprising the area south of U.S. Route 50, including Little Egypt, near the juncture of the Mississippi River and Ohio River. Southern Illinois is the site of the ancient city of Cahokia, as well as the site of the first state capital at Kaskaskia, which today is separated from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River. This region can be distinguished from the other two by its warmer climate, different variety of crops (including some cotton farming in the past), more rugged topography (due to the area remaining unglaciated during the Illinoian Stage, unlike most of the rest of the state), as well as small-scale oil deposits and coal mining. The Illinois suburbs of St. Louis comprise the second most populous metropolitan area in Illinois with over 700,000 inhabitants, and are known collectively as the Metro-East. The other significant concentration of population in Southern Illinois is the Carbondale-Marion-Herrin, Illinois Combined Statistical Area centered on Carbondale and Marion, a two-county area that is home to 123,272 residents. A portion of southeastern Illinois is part of the extended Evansville, Indiana Metro Area, locally referred to as the Tri-State with Indiana and Kentucky. Seven Illinois counties are in the area.

In addition to these three, largely latitudinally defined divisions, all of the region outside of the Chicago Metropolitan area is often called "downstate" Illinois. This term is flexible, but is generally meant to mean everything outside the Chicago-area. Thus, some cities in ''Northern'' Illinois, such as DeKalb, which is west of Chicago, and Rockford—which is actually ''north'' of Chicago—are considered to be "downstate".

Climate

Because of its nearly 400 mile distance from its northernmost and southernmost extremes, as well as its mid-continental situation, Illinois has a widely varying climate. Most of Illinois has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification ''Dfa''), with hot, humid summers and cold winters. The southernmost part of the state, from about Carbondale southward, borders on a humid subtropical climate (Koppen ''Cfa''), with more moderate winters. Average yearly precipitation for Illinois varies from just over at the southern tip to around in the northern portion of the state. Normal annual snowfall exceeds in the Chicago area, while the southern portion of the state normally receives less than . The all time high temperature was , recorded on July 14, 1954, at East St. Louis, Illinois, while the all time low temperature was , recorded on January 5, 1999, at Congerville, Illinois.

Illinois averages around 51 days of thunderstorm activity a year, which ranks somewhat above average in the number of thunderstorm days for the United States. Illinois is vulnerable to tornadoes with an average of 35 occurring annually, which puts much of the state at around five tornadoes per annually. The deadliest tornadoes on record in the nation have occurred largely in Illinois, not because the tornadoes are more common or frequent in Illinois, but rather, because Illinois is simply the most populous state in Tornado Alley. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 killed 695 people in three states; 613 of the victims died in Illinois. Modern developments in storm tracking have caused death tolls from tornadoes to dramatically decline since the 1960s, with no major losses of life in the state since the 1967 tornado storm in northern Illinois.

Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures For Various Illinois Cities>

City

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Cairo

Chicago

Edwardsville

Moline

Peoria

Rockford

Springfield

Demographics

In the 2010 Census, Illinois was found to have a population of 12,830,632, representing a slightly lower increase than had been anticipated in estimates from two years earlier. Illinois is the most populous state in the Midwest region. The Chicago metropolitan area, the third most populous city in the United States, comprises only 8% of the land area of the state, but contains 65% of the state's residents.

Specific demographic data from the 2010 Census is not subject to release until March 2011, but as of the 2007 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 1,768,518 foreign-born inhabitants of the state or 13.8% of the population, with 48.4% from Latin America, 24.6% from Asia, 22.8% from Europe, 2.9% from Africa, 1.2% from Northern America and 0.2% from Oceania. Of the foreign-born population, 43.7% were naturalized U.S. citizens and 56.3% were not U.S. citizens. Additionally, the racial distributions were as follows: 65.0% White American, 15.0% African American, 14.9% Latino American, 4.3% Asian American, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Natives, and 0.1% Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander American. In 2007, 6.9% of Illinois' population was reported as being under age 5, 24.9% under age 18 and 12.1% were age 65 and over. Females made up approximately 50.7% of the population.

According to the 2007 estimates, 21.1% of the population had German ancestry, 13.3% had Irish ancestry, 7.9% had Polish ancestry, 6.7% had English ancestry, 6.4% had Italian ancestry, 4.6% listed themselves as American, 2.4% had Swedish ancestry, 2.2% had French ancestry, other than Basque, 1.6% had Dutch ancestry, 1.4% had Norwegian ancestry and 1.3% had Scottish ancestry. Also, 21.8% of the population age 5 years and over reported speaking a language other than English, with 12.8% of the population speaking Spanish, 5.6% speaking other Indo-European languages, 2.5% speaking Asian and Austronesian languages, and 0.8% speaking other languages.

Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, is the nation's third largest city. In 2000, 23.3% of Illinois' population lived in the city of Chicago, 43.3% in Cook County and 65.6% in the counties of the Chicago metropolitan area: Will, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties, as well as Cook County. The remaining population lives in the smaller cities and rural areas that dot the state's plains. As of 2000, the state's center of population was at , located in Grundy County, northeast of the village of Mazon.

Urban areas

Chicago is the largest city in the state and the third most populous city in the United States, with its 2010 population of 2,695,598. The U.S. Census Bureau currently lists seven other cities with populations of over 100,000 within Illinois. Based upon the Census Bureau's official 2010 population,: Aurora, a Chicago satellite town which eclipsed Rockford for the title of "Second City" of Illinois in 2006; its 2010 population was 197,899. Rockford, at 152,871, is the third largest city in the state, and is also the largest city in the state not located within the Chicago metropolitan area. Joliet, located southwest of Chicago, is the fourth largest city in the state, with a population of 147,433. Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, is fifth with 141,853; Naperville and Aurora (the 2nd largest city) share a boundary along Illinois Route 59. Springfield, the state capital of Illinois, comes in sixth with 117,352. Peoria, which decades ago was the second largest city in the state, comes in seventh with 115,007. The eighth largest and final city in the 100,000 club is Elgin, a northwest suburb of Chicago with a 2010 population of 108,188.

The most populated city in the state south of Springfield is Belleville, with 44,478 people at the 2010 census. It is located in the Illinois portion of Greater St. Louis (often called the Metro-East area), which has a rapidly growing population of over 700,000 people.

Other major urban areas include the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area, which has a combined population of almost 230,000 people, the Illinois portion of the Quad Cities area with about 215,000 people, and the Bloomington-Normal area with a combined population of over 165,000.

Religion

Roman Catholics constitute the single largest religious denomination in Illinois; they are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago, and account for nearly 30% of the state's population. However, taken together ''as a group'', the various Protestant denominations comprise a greater percentage of the state's population than do Catholics. In 2000 Catholics in Illinois numbered 3,874,933, the largest Protestant denominations were the United Methodist Church, with 365,182 members, and the Southern Baptist Convention, with 305,838. The largest non-Christian group were Jews with 270,000. Chicago and its suburbs are also home to a large and growing population of Hindus, Muslims, Baha'is and Sikhs.

Illinois played an important role in the early Latter Day Saint movement, with Nauvoo, Illinois, becoming a gathering place for Mormons in the early 1840s. Nauvoo was the location of the succession crisis, which led to the separation of the Mormon movement into several Latter Day Saint sects. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest of the sects to emerge from the Mormon schism, claims 55,460 in Illinois today.

Economy

The dollar gross state product for Illinois was estimated to be billion in 2008. The state's 2008 per capita gross state product was estimated to be , and the state's per capita personal income was estimated to be in 2009.

, the state's unemployment rate was 11.5%, and two months later, the rate dropped to 10.8% in May.

Taxes

Illinois' state income tax is calculated by multiplying net income by a flat rate. In 1990, that rate was set at 3%, but in 2010, the General Assembly voted in a temporary increase in the rate to 5%; the new rate went into effect on January 1, 2011, and is scheduled to return to 3% after four years. There are two rates for state sales tax: 6.25% for general merchandise and 1% for qualifying food, drugs and medical appliances. The property tax is the largest single tax in Illinois, and is the major source of tax revenue for local government taxing districts. The property tax is a local not state tax, imposed by local government taxing districts, which include counties, townships, municipalities, school districts and special taxation districts. The property tax in Illinois is imposed only on real property.

Agriculture

Illinois' major agricultural outputs are corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, dairy products, and wheat. In most years, Illinois is either the first or second state for the highest production of soybeans, with a harvest of 427.7 million bushels (11.64 million metric tons) in 2008, after Iowa's production of 444.82 million bushels (12.11 million metric tons). Illinois ranks second in U.S. corn production with more than 1.5 billion bushels produced annually. Illinois also produces wine, and the state is home to two American viticultural areas. Illinois' universities are actively researching alternative agricultural products as alternative crops.

Manufacturing

Illinois is one of the nation's manufacturing leaders, boasting annual value added productivity by manufacturing of over $107 billion in 2006. About three-quarters of the state's manufacturers are located in the Northeastern Opportunity Return Region, with 38 percent of Illinois' approximately 18,900 manufacturing plants located in Cook County. As of 2006, the leading manufacturing industries in Illinois, based upon value-added, were chemical manufacturing ($18.3 billion), machinery manufacturing ($13.4 billion), food manufacturing ($12.9 billion), fabricated metal products ($11.5 billion), transportation equipment ($7.4 billion), plastics and rubber products ($7.0 billion), and computer and electronic products ($6.1 billion).

Services

By the early 2000s, Illinois' economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, law, logistics, and medicine. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois' earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures market. Other important non-manufacturing industries include publishing, tourism, and energy production and distribution.

Energy

Illinois is a net importer of fuels for energy, despite large coal resources and some minor oil production. Illinois exports electricity, ranking fifth among states in electricity production and seventh in electricity consumption.

Coal

The coal industry of Illinois has its origins in the middle 19th century, when entrepreneurs such as Jacob Loose discovered coal in locations such as Sangamon County. Jacob Bunn contributed to the development of the Illinois coal industry, and was a founder and owner of the Western Coal & Mining Company of Illinois. About 68% of Illinois has coal-bearing strata of the Pennsylvanian geologic period. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, 211 billion tons of bituminous coal are estimated to lie under the surface, having a total heating value greater than the estimated oil deposits in the Arabian Peninsula. However, this coal has a high sulfur content, which causes acid rain unless special equipment is used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. Many Illinois power plants are not equipped to burn high-sulfur coal. In 1999, Illinois produced 40.4 million tons of coal, but only 17 million tons (42%) of Illinois coal was consumed in Illinois. Most of the coal produced in Illinois is exported to other states, while much of the coal burned for power in Illinois (21 million tons in 1998) is mined in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.

Mattoon was recently chosen as the site for the Department of Energy's FutureGen project, a 275 megawatt experimental zero emission coal-burning power plant which just received a second round of funding from the DOE.

Petroleum

Illinois is a leading refiner of petroleum in the American Midwest, with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly . However, Illinois has very limited crude oil proved reserves that account for less than 1% of U.S. crude oil proved reserves. Residential heating is 81% natural gas compared to less than 1% heating oil. Illinois is ranked 14th in oil production among states, with a daily output of approximately in 2005.

Nuclear power

Nuclear power arguably began in Illinois with the Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the world's first nuclear reactor, built on the University of Chicago campus. There are six operating nuclear power plants in Illinois: Braidwood; Byron; Clinton; Dresden; LaSalle; and Quad Cities. With the exception of the single-unit Clinton plant, each of these facilities has two reactors. Three reactors have been permanently shut down and are in various stages of decommissioning: Dresden-1 and Zion-1 and 2. , Illinois was ranked first among the 50 states both in nuclear capacity and nuclear generation. In 2007, 48% of Illinois' electricity was generated using nuclear power.

Wind power

Illinois has seen growing interest in the use of wind power for electrical generation. Most of Illinois was rated in 2009 as "marginal or fair" for wind energy production by the U.S. Department of Energy, with some western sections rated "good" and parts of the south rated "poor". These ratings are for wind turbines with hub heights; newer wind turbines are taller, enabling them to reach stronger winds farther from the ground. As a result, more areas of Illinois have become prospective wind farm sites. As of September 2009, Illinois had 1116.06 MW of installed wind power nameplate capacity with another 741.9 MW under construction. Illinois ranked ninth among U.S. states in installed wind power capacity, and sixteenth by potential capacity. Large wind farms in Illinois include Twin Groves, Rail Splitter, EcoGrove, and Mendota Hills.

As of 2007, wind energy represented only 1.7% of Illinois' energy production, and it was estimated that wind power could provide 5-10% of the state's energy needs. Also, the Illinois General Assembly mandated in 2007 that by 2025, 25% of all electricity generated in Illinois is to come from renewable resources.

Biofuels

Illinois is ranked second in corn production among U.S. states, and Illinois corn is used to produce 40% of the ethanol consumed in the United States. The Archer Daniels Midland corporation in Decatur, Illinois is the world's leading producer of ethanol from corn.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the partners in the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), a $500 million biofuels research project funded by petroleum giant BP.

Arts and culture

Museums

Illinois has numerous museums. The state of the art Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is the largest presidential library in the country; numerous museums in the city of Chicago are considered some of the best in the world. These include the John G. Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, the Museum of Science and Industry and the Polish Museum of America. Illinois is also home to several landmark historic house museums such as Magnolia Manor in Cairo or the Elihu Benjamin Washburne and Ulysses S. Grant Homes in Galena.

Music

Illinois is a leader in music education having hosted the Midwest Clinic: An International Band and Orchestra Conference since 1946, as well being home to the Illinois Music Educators Association (IMEA), one of the largest professional music educator's organizations in the country. Each summer since 2004, Southern Illinois University Carbondale has played host to the Southern Illinois Music Festival, which presents dozens of performances throughout the region. Past featured artists include the Eroica Trio and violinist David Kim.

Sports

Major league teams

As one of the United States' major metropolises, all major sports leagues have teams headquartered in Chicago. Two Major League Baseball teams are located in the state. The Chicago Cubs of the National League play in the second-oldest major league stadium (Wrigley Field) and are widely known for having the longest championship drought in all of major American sport: not winning the World Series since 1908. The Chicago White Sox of the American League won the World Series in 2005, their first since 1917.

The Chicago Bears football team has won nine total NFL Championships, the last occurring in Super Bowl XX in 1986. The NFL's Arizona Cardinals were the ''Chicago'' Cardinals until they left the city in 1961.

The Chicago Bulls of the NBA is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world, due largely to the efforts of Michael Jordan, who led the team to six NBA championships in eight seasons in the 1990s.

The Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL began playing in 1926, as a member of the Original Six and have won four Stanley Cups, most recently in 2010 (after one of the longest Stanley Cup droughts of any NHL team, not having won since 1961).

The Chicago Fire soccer club is a member of MLS and is one of the league's most successful and best-supported, since its founding in 1997, winning one league and four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cups in that timespan.

Minor league teams

Many minor league teams also call Chicago their home. These include

The Chicago Rush of the Arena Football League, who won ArenaBowl XX in 2006.

The Chicago Wolves is an AHL team.

The Chicago Sky of the WNBA

The Chicago Bandits of the NPF, a female softball league; the Bandits won their first title in 2008

The Chicago Red Stars of the WPS, a female soccer league

Folded sports franchises

The city was formerly home to several other teams that either failed to survive, or that belonged to leagues that folded.

The Chicago Blitz, United States Football League

The Chicago Sting, Major Indoor Soccer League

The Chicago Cougars, World Hockey Association

The Chicago Rockers, Continental Basketball Association

The Chicago Skyliners, American Basketball Association

The Chicago Bruisers, Arena Football League

The Chicago Power, National Professional Soccer League

The Chicago Blaze, National Women's Basketball League.

Professional sports teams outside of Chicago

Chicago is not the only place in Illinois where professional sports are played. The Rockford Lightning is one of the oldest CBA teams in the league. The Peoria Chiefs and Kane County Cougars are minor league baseball teams affiliated with MLB. The Schaumburg Flyers and Lake County Fielders are members of the North American League, and the Southern Illinois Miners, Gateway Grizzlies, Joliet Slammers, Windy City ThunderBolts and Normal CornBelters belong to the Frontier League.

In addition to the Chicago Wolves, the AHL also has two teams in Illinois outside of Chicago: the Rockford IceHogs serves as the AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Peoria Rivermen is the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues.

Motor racing

Illinois has a long tradition of motor racing. Oval tracks at the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, the Chicago Motor Speedway in Cicero and the Gateway International Raceway in Madison, near St. Louis, have hosted NASCAR, CART and IRL races, whereas the Sports Car Club of America, among other national and regional road racing clubs, have visited the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, the Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit and the former Meadowdale International Raceway in Carpentersville. Illinois also has several short tracks and dragstrips. The dragstrip at Gateway International Raceway and the Route 66 Raceway, which sits on the same property as the Chicagoland Speedway, both host NHRA drag races.

Parks and recreation

The Illinois state parks' system began in 1908 with what is now Fort Massac State Park, becoming the first park in a system encompassing over 60 parks and about the same number of recreational and wildlife areas.

Areas under the protection and control of the National Park Service include: the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor near Lockport; the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail; the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield; the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail; the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail; and the American Discovery Trail.

In March 2011, Illinois ranked as a bottom-seven "Worst" state (tied with Georgia and Oklahoma) in the American State Litter Scorecard. The Land of Lincoln suffers from overall poor effectiveness and quality of its statewide public space cleanliness—due to state and related eradication standards and performance indicators.

Governance

While the organization of the central government of Illinois is largely the same as every other state (having three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial), below this top level, the substructure of Illinois' government is extremely complex, arguably the most complex of all fifty states.

State government structure

Legislative functions are granted to the Illinois General Assembly, composed of the 118-member Illinois House of Representatives and the 59-member Illinois Senate. The executive branch is led by the Governor of Illinois, but four other executive officials are separately elected by the people. The judiciary is composed of the Supreme Court of Illinois and the lower appellate and circuit courts.

Local government structure

Illinois has more units of local government than any other state—over 8,000 in all.. The basic subdivision of Illinois is like almost every other state, the county, and Illinois has 102 of these. About half of these counties, in turn, are divided into townships, which is much the same as many other Midwestern states. And finally, Illinois has a number of cities, villages, and towns commensurate with a state of its size. But the counties, townships, and municipal governments in Illinois make up only about 1/4 of all of the governmental units in the state. The reason Illinois has so many units of government is because so many single-purpose governmental entities have been created.

Not uniquely, Illinois has school districts which do not share boundaries with either counties nor townships. What would observers from many other states as odd is that there are many places where a given piece of land sits within ''two'' school districts, one high school district, and another elementary district, each of which has its own school board and its own taxing authority.

Another common political unit is the "library district". Library districts are run by library boards elected at the same elections as are governors, senators, and presidents. The boundaries of these library districts occasionally coincide with those of another governmental entity, such as a township, but more often, they are set independently. Another unit of government with taxation authority is the "sanitary district", a euphemism for "sewage district". Many Illinoisians first learned of the existence of these entities when, in 1978, a sanitary district board member named Alex Seith captured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against the veteran senator Charles Percy and nearly upset him in the general election. There are additional units of government that oversee watersheds, land use, and many other functions that in another state would be handled by the county or city governments.

The Constitution of 1970 created, for the first time in Illinois, a type of "home rule", which allows cities of certain sizes to opt out of certain types of state laws.

Law enforcement

The complexity and overlapping jurisdictions of Illinois' law enforcement agencies is not unlike that of the overlapping taxing authorities noted above. At the state level, there are at least eleven law enforcement agencies. At the county level, there are sheriffs, forest preserve police and other specialized police forces. At the local level, most cities and many villages have municipal police forces, park district police forces, and even local specialized police forces. Many colleges also have their own campus police that are often sworn police officers.

In 2000, Illinois was ranked 4th in the U.S. in the number of full-time sworn officers with 321 per 100,000 persons, behind Louisiana (415), New York (384), and New Jersey (345). In this ranking, only New York had a higher total population than Illinois. Illinois is also near the top of most law enforcement numbers lists, such as number of agencies per state, number of agencies with special jurisdictions, and number of local police agencies. Even taking into account that Illinois is the fifth most populous state, many of the ratios are higher than more populated states. There is much overlap in jurisdiction amongst the different law enforcement agencies.

Politics

Party balance

Historically, Illinois was long a major swing state, with near-parity existing between the Republican and the Democratic parties. However, in recent elections, the Democratic Party has slowly gained ground, and Illinois has come to be seen as more of a "blue" state. Chicago and most of Cook County votes have long been strongly Democratic. In addition, Democratic voters have moved to the traditionally Republican "collar counties" (the suburbs surrounding Chicago's Cook County, Illinois), which are becoming increasingly diverse.

Republicans continue to prevail in rural northern and central Illinois; Republican support is strong in southern Illinois outside of the East St. Louis metropolitan area. Illinois has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the last five elections. State resident Barack Obama easily won the state's 21 electoral votes in 2008, by a margin of 25 percentage points with 61.9% of the vote. And though the Republicans' electoral performance in the 2010 mid-year elections marked some improvement, the trend in Illinois politics for the long term appears to be more blue than red.

History of corruption

Politics in the state, particularly those of the Chicago machine, have been famous for highly visible corruption cases, as well as for crusading reformers, such as governors Adlai Stevenson (D) and James R. Thompson (R). In 2006, former Governor George Ryan (R) was convicted of racketeering and bribery. In 2008, then-Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) was served with a criminal complaint on corruption charges, stemming from allegations that he conspired to sell the vacated Senate seat left by President Barack Obama (D) to the highest bidder. In the late 20th century, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D) was imprisoned for mail fraud; former governor and federal judge Otto Kerner, Jr. (D) was imprisoned for bribery; and State Auditor of Public Accounts (Comptroller) Orville Hodge (R) was imprisoned for embezzlement. In 1912, William Lorimer, the GOP boss of Chicago, was expelled from the U.S. Senate for bribery and in 1921, Governor Len Small (R) was found to have defrauded the state of a million dollars.

US Presidents from Illinois

Three presidents have claimed Illinois as their political base: Lincoln, Grant, and Obama. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, but moved to Illinois at the age of 21; he served in the General Assembly and represented the 7th congressional district in the US House of Representatives before his election as President. Ulysses S. Grant was born in Ohio and had a military career that precluded settling down, but on the eve of the Civil War, and approaching middle age, Grant moved to Illinois and thus claimed it as his home when running for President. Barack Obama was born and raised in Hawaii (other than a four year period of his childhood spent in Indonesia) and made Illinois his home and base after completing law school.

Only one person elected President of the United States was actually born in Illinois. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, raised in Dixon and educated at Eureka College. Reagan moved to Los Angeles as a young adult and later became Governor of California before being elected President.

Though never elected president, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who was born and raised in central Illinois, was the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956.

Black senators

Since the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1789, only six African-Americans have served as members of the United States Senate, and ''half'' of them represented Illinois: Carol Moseley-Braun, Barack Obama, and Roland Burris, who was appointed to replace Obama after his election to the presidency.

Education

Illinois State Board of Education

The Illinois State Board of Education or ISBE, is autonomous of the governor and the state legislature, and administers public education in the state. Local municipalities and their respective school districts operate individual public schools but the ISBE audits performance of public schools with the Illinois School Report Card. The ISBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.

Primary and secondary schools

Education is compulsory from kindergarten through the twelfth grade in Illinois, commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school, middle school or junior high school and high school. District territories are often complex in structure. Many areas in the state are actually located in ''two'' school districts—one for high school, the other for elementary and middle schools. And such districts do not necessarily share boundaries. A given high school may have several elementary districts that feed into it, yet some of those feeder districts may themselves feed into multiple high school districts.

Colleges and universities

Using the criterion established by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, there are eleven "National Universities" in the state. , five of these rank in the "first tier" (that is, the top quartile) among the top 500 National Universities in the United States, as determined by the ''U.S. News & World Report'' rankings: the University of Chicago (8), Northwestern University (12), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (39), Illinois Institute of Technology (106), and Loyola University Chicago (119).

Illinois also has more than 20 additional accredited four-year universities, both public and private, and dozens of small liberal arts colleges across the state. Additionally, Illinois supports 49 public community colleges in the Illinois Community College System.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Because of its central location and its proximity to the Rust Belt and Grain Belt, Illinois is a national crossroads for air, auto, rail and truck traffic.

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is one of the busiest airports in the world, with 59.3 million domestic passengers annually, along with 11.4 million international passengers in 2008. It is a major hub for United Airlines and American Airlines, and a major airport expansion project is currently underway. Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) is the secondary airport in the Chicago metropolitan area, and is a major hub for Southwest Airlines. It served 17.3 million domestic and international passengers in 2008.

Illinois has an extensive passenger and freight rail transportation network. Chicago is a national Amtrak hub and in-state passengers are served by Amtrak's Illinois Service, featuring the Chicago to Carbondale ''Illini'' and ''Saluki'', the Chicago to Quincy ''Carl Sandburg'' and ''Illinois Zephyr'', and the Chicago to St. Louis ''Lincoln Service''. Currently there is trackwork on the Chicago-St. Louis line to bring the maximum speed up to which would reduce the trip time by an hour and a half. Nearly every North American railway meets at Chicago, making it the largest and most active rail hub in the country. Extensive commuter rail is provided in the city proper and some immediate suburbs by the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system. The largest suburban commuter rail system in the United States, operated by Metra, uses existing rail lines to provide direct commuter rail access for hundreds of suburbs to the city and beyond.

In March 2011, Illinois ranked as a bottom-seven "Worst" state (tied with Georgia and Oklahoma) in the American State Litter Scorecard. The Land of Lincoln suffers from overall poor effectiveness and quality of its statewide public space cleanliness (primarily from roadway and adjacent litter/debris abatement)--due to state and related eradication standards and performance indicators.

Major U.S. Interstate highways crossing the state include: I-24, I-39, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70, I-72, I-74, I-80, I-88, I-90, and I-94. Its central location is the reason that Illinois carries the distinction of having the most primary (2-digit) Interstates pass through it among the 50 states.

In addition to the state's rail lines, the Mississippi River and Illinois River provide major transportation routes for the state's agricultural interests. Lake Michigan gives Illinois access to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

See also

Chicago

List of National Register of Historic Places in Illinois

List of people from Illinois

U.S. state

References

Further reading

External links

State of Illinois ''official government website''

The Official Website for International Visitors to Chicago

State of Illinois research information guide from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Illinois Bureau of Tourism

Illinois: Science In Your Backyard USGS Illinois State Agency Databases compiled by the Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of the American Library Association Illinois State Energy Profile DOE, Energy Information Administration Illinois: State Fact Sheets USDA, Economic Research Service Illinois State Guide LOC, Virtual Programs & Services Biographies Of Governors of Illinois: 1818 to 1885 compiled by OnlineBiographies.info Illinois Highways Page by Richard Carlson

Category:States of the United States Category:States and territories established in 1818

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name	Lupe Fiasco
background	solo_singer
birth name	Wasalu Muhammad Jaco
alias	Lupe Fiasco
born	February 16, 1982Chicago, Illinois, United States
origin	Chicago, Illinois
religion	Islam
instrument	Keyboards, Piano
genre	Hip hop
occupation	Musician
years active	2005 to Present Day
label	1st & 15th, Atlantic
associated acts	Child Rebel Soldier, Japanese Cartoon, Matthew Santos, B.o.B, All City Chess Club
website	}}

Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982), better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco ( ), is an American rapper, artist, producer and CEO of 1st and 15th Entertainment. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his critically acclaimed debut album, ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor''. He also performs as the frontman of post punk band Japanese Cartoon under his real name. He was raised in Chicago, Fiasco developed an interest in hip-hop after initially disliking the genre for its heavy use of profanity and vulgarity; Fiasco eventually adopted the name Lupe Fiasco beginning to record songs in his father's basement then later joining a group called "Da Pak". This group disbanded shortly after its inception and Fiasco then met the bestselling rapper Jay-Z who helped him get signed to a record deal with Atlantic Records. In 2006, Fiasco released his debut album ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' on the label; Fiasco's debut album became a commercial success as well being critically acclaim. In the next year, Fiasco released his second album, ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool'' in December 2007 which the lead single is titled "Superstar"; this became a market success and later becoming a music hit, peaking at #10 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100.

Life and career

1982–98: Early life

Fiasco was born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco on February 16, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois. Born of West African descent, he was one of nine children of Shirley, a gourmet chef, and Gregory, a engineer. His father, who was a member of the Black Panther Party, was a prolific African drummer, karate teacher, operating plant engineer, and owner of karate schools and army surplus stores. Fiasco was raised Muslim on the Westside of Chicago on Madison Terrace housing project. At the age of three, Fiasco began taking martial arts classes. His parents divorced when he was at the age of five and he went on to live with his mother throughout the rest of his life; Fiasco's father still remained prevalent in his life, "After school, my father would come and get us and take us out into the world—one day, we're listening to N.W.A, the next day we're listening to Ravi Shankar, the next day, he's teaching us how to shoot an AK-47, the next day, we're at karate class, the next day, we're in Chinatown...". In the sixth grade, he went to live with his father in Harvey, Illinois; his father lived next door to a crack house and taught Fiasco to use guns to defend himself from drug dealers. Despite his unstable upbringing, Fiasco states that he was well-educated as a child, asserting that "I grew up in the hood around prostitutes, drug dealers, killers, and gangbangers but I also grew up juxtaposed: On the doorknob outside of our apartment, there was blood from some guy who got shot; but inside, there was ''National Geographic'' magazines and encyclopedias and a little library bookshelf situation. And we didn't have cable, so we didn't have the luxury of having our brains washed by MTV. We watched public television – cooking shows and stuff like that."

He initially disliked hip hop music for its use of vulgarity and profanity so he preferred to listen to jazz; Fiasco idolized clarinet player Benny Goodman. He began rapping when he was in the eighth grade and upon listening to Nas' 1996 album, ''It Was Written'', Fiasco began to get into hip hop. Early in his career, he went by stage names Little Lu/Lu tha Underdog. Growing up, Fiasco was given the nickname "Lu", the last part of his first name given by his mother; "Lupe" is an extension of this nickname which he borrowed from a friend from high school. "Fiasco," he says, "came from the Firm album, it had the song, 'Firm Fiasco'. I just liked the way it looked on paper." He also said more details on his name, "I simply like the way the word "looked" (Fiasco). You know how rappers always have names like MC Terrorist—like they're 'terrorizing' other rappers? I knew fiasco meant a great disaster or something like that but I didn't realize that the person named Fiasco would be the disaster, and that you should be calling other MCs fiascos—not yourself. I was moving real fast at the time and it kind of humbled me in a sense. It taught me like, 'Yo, stop rushing, or you're going to have some fiascos.' So I just kept it. It's like a scar, I guess, a reminder to not over think or overrun anything ever again." Fiasco later described the experience saying, "We had a song out about cocaine, guns, and women and I would go to a record store and look at it and think, 'What are you doing?' I felt like a hypocrite. I was acting like this rapper who would never be judged and I had to destroy that guy because what Lupe Fiasco says on this microphone is going to come back to Wasalu Jaco(speaking in third person). When the music cuts off, you have to go home and live with what you say." After turning away from gangsta rap, he developed a greater appreciation of the lyricism of the likes of Jay-Z and Nas. In the process, his mother had given him a record of The Watts Prophets, one of the first bands to use spoken words with music and would become the basis of the genre, Hip Hop.

Later, Fiasco later signed a solo deal with Arista Records but was dropped when President and CEO L. A. Reid was fired. During his short tenure at Arista, he did meet Jay-Z, who was the president of Def Jam Recordings at the time, he referred to him as a "breath of fresh air" saying that he reminded him of a younger version of himself. Jay-Z would later go on and help him get a record deal at Atlantic Records.

During his early hip hop career Fiasco remixed another one of West's songs, "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" by renaming it as "Conflict Diamonds". This caught Kanye West's attention thus resulting in him asking Fiasco to perform on the song "Touch the Sky" off his album ''Late Registration''; tise song which sampled Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" became a music hit in the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #42. When Fiasco released his first Atlantic Records single, "Kick, Push" it was released earlier than expected, the song was a love story about two lovers sharing a passion for skateboarding. It would go on to be nominated for two 2007 Grammy Awards. Fiasco's "Kick, Push" and its accompanying music video helped Fiasco get respected but not revered in the hip hop community. During this time, he had guest appearances on singles on Tha' Rayne's "Kiss Me" and "Didn't You Know" and also K Foxx's 2004 "This Life"; he also released the song "Coulda Been" on a compilation of MTV's Advance Warning.

2006–08: ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' and ''The Cool''

In 2006, Jay-Z assisted him in the production of what would become his debut album ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor''. The title of the album is a reference to 'Food and Liquor' stores common in Chicago. He explains, "the store is where everything is at, whether it be the wino hanging by the store, or us kids going back and forth to the store to buy something. The 'Food' is the good part and the ''Liquors'' is the bad part. I try to balance out both parts of me... Food to me represents growth and progression. You eat food and you get strength. You need it to live. Liquor is not a necessity; it is a want. It destroys you. It breaks you down. I can see why it's prohibited in Islam...I've always felt like liquor represents the bad, the food represents the good, and everyone is made up of a little of both." His single "Kick, Push" became very popular and was featured in the videogame ''NBA Live 2007''. As his popularity steadily increased his anticipation for his upcoming album after ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor''. The debut album was officially released on September 19, 2006. The album featured production from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Mike Shinoda, The Neptunes, Prolyfic, and more. Singles from the album were "Kick, Push," "I Gotcha" and "Daydreamin'" featuring Jill Scott. The critically lauded album was later nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Rap Album. Fiasco won "Best Urban/Alternative Performance" for "Daydreamin". In the same year, he was voted by ''GQ'' magazine as the "Breakout Man of the Year." He also received four BET Hip Hop Award nominations, and it made it to No. 8 on Billboard 200 and No.2 on Billboard Top R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

In 2007, Fiasco announced his second album, ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool'', a concept album that expands on the story of the track of the same name on his first album. While recording this album, Fiasco's father died of type II diabetes and his business partner, Charles "Chilly" Patton, was convicted of attempting to supply heroin and was eventually sentenced to forty-four years in a correctional facility. These events greatly affected Fiasco and the subsequent themes discussed on the album; the album was released in December 2007 in United States while the first single and video from the album, "Superstar" featuring Matthew Santos was released the first week of November 2007. Baseball's Hanley Ramirez, Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Zimmerman, Gerald Laird and Ryan Braun have used "Superstar" as their at-bat song. The song has also been featured in HBO's ''Hard Knocks'' TV show. The album's second single (released in the UK in April 2008) was "Paris, Tokyo" – a song based around Fiasco's experiences of touring the world between his first and second albums. Moreover, in 2007 it was revealed that Fiasco, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams had formed a group known as Child Rebel Soldier. CRS initially released one single, entitled "US Placers" and featuring a Thom Yorke sample. In October 2010, as part of Kanye West's G.O.O.D Friday's, a second song titled "Don't Stop" was released. In an interview with MTV, particularly posted on his blog, Lupe said that a full length CRS album would depend on fan demand. The three appeared on the Glow in the Dark Tour together, though under separate billing. In an interview with ''The Village Voice'', Fiasco revealed that he was writing a novel about a window washer aptly titled ''Reflections of a Window Washer''. In 2008, Fiasco and his band "1500 or Nothin" joined Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour which also featured Rihanna and N.E.R.D. The tour stopped in several cities, including his hometown of Chicago. In 2008, MTV named Fiasco the 7th Hottest MC in the Game and announced that he was remixing ''The Cool'' with French electro house act Justice. Fiasco's "Superstar" has been included in the video game ''Lips''.

2009–present: ''Lasers''

Fiasco announced at a Chicago concert late in 2008 that his next and most likely final album will be a three disc album called ''LupE.N.D.'' and that the first disc titled, "Everywhere" would come out in June 2009. On January 30, 2009, Lupe Fiasco originally announced that ''LupE.N.D.'' will be postponed indefinitely. In spite of the bad news that he would not release three albums Fiasco decided to plan a project titled. ''The Great American Rap Album''. In June 2009, Fiasco would released two following albums in December 2009 and June 2010 with rumored ''LupE.N.D.'' following afterward. However, it was announced by Fiasco that his next album would instead be titled, "''We Are Lasers''", yet later his official Rep. from Atlantic Records announced and confirmed that it would instead be titled simply "''Lasers''". On June 26, 2009, Fiasco announced at the Chicago Theater that the album would be released in the 4th Quarter of 2009, particular in December. The album's first single, "Shining Down" features Matthew Santos and is produced by Soundtrakk; this single was released on July 7, 2009. On January 26, 2010, a new song called "I'm Beamin" was released and Fiasco referred to the song as a 'taste' of what is to come... There are a few snippets of songs that have been released as of August 24, 2009, unofficially titled "Army Girl," "Ladies And Gentlemen," and "2 Ways." Besides the forever delays and rhetoric about the release date of his latest album, Fiasco ventured into making songs for movies; he has a bonus track on iTunes for the soundtrack to ''The Twilight Saga: New Moon'' called "Solar Midnight". In a post on his Myspace blog, Fiasco addressed concerns by fans who believed that he had "sold out" by making a song for the soundtrack saying, "I'm not SELLING OUT by doing a song for NEW MOON... People thought I 'SOLD OUT' when I did 'Kick, Push'". On October 7, 2009, Lupe released a song in response to the release of MTV's 2009 "Top 10 Hottest MC's List", he was undoubtedly absent from the list; Lupe stated that the track entitled, "Fire" would prove that he belonged in the number one spot on the list.

In October 2009, Fiasco released two new freestyles, "Turnt Up" and "Say Something". Both freestyles were included on his official mixtape ''Enemy of the State: A Love Story'' released on November 26, 2009. The mixtape also included beats from Diddy's "Angels", Lil Wayne's "Fireman," Slaughterhouse's The One, and Radiohead's "The National Anthem." In the likes of contributing to the hip hop community itself more, Fiasco contributed his vocals to Chris Brown's song "Girlfriend" on his 2009 album ''Graffiti'' and has provided a guest verse on the song "Past My Shades" from Atlanta rapper B.o.B's 2010 album, ''B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray''.

Later in 2010, Fiasco announced on Twitter that his new album is complete and is waiting for the release from Atlantic Records; the delay of the release for the album remains to be unclear thus resulted in fans later putting together an online petition demanding that Atlantic Records release ''Lasers''. Around the 3rd or 4th Quarter of 2010, the petition garnered considerable attention on hip hop blog sites as well as attaining over five thousands signatures since its creation, it has since reached over twenty-eight thousand signatures. In response to the petition, Fiasco released a song titled "B.M.F-Building Minds Faster" as a gift for his fans; the story was featured on many sites including Cable New Networks (CNN) and MTV

In April 2010, in association with Pharrell, Fiasco formed the hip-hop group All City Chess Club which included himself as well as Asher Roth, B.o.B., The Cool Kids, Charles Hamilton, Blu, Diggy Simmons, Wale, J. Cole, & Dosage. They have so far made one song, a remix of Lupe's "I'm Beamin" which features Asher Roth, Charles Hamilton, The Cool Kids, Blu, Diggy Simmons, B.o.B & Dosage.

On July 16, 2010, Fiasco under his real name Wasalu Jaco released his post-punk band Japanese Cartoon's debut album ''In The Jaws Of The Lords Of Death''. He created the album while waiting for Atlantic Records to release his upcoming album and stated that Japanese Cartoon was influenced by a variety of musical genres, saying, "I’ve always been a fan of all music. My favorite songs aren’t hip-hop songs, they’re songs from Queen like Somebody to Love. Hip-hop is just something I actually know how to do but I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music. Once I got to create some hip-hop, it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to do now?' So my artistic side was like, 'Yo, let’s do some rock music.'"

In August 10, 2010, Fiasco released a snippet of a song "Go to Sleep," on his official Twitter page. That snippet/song had the album titled ''Food & Liquor II (TGARA)''. This led to speculation that "Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album" would be Lupe's follow-up to ''Lasers''. Near the End of August, Fiasco released "Go to Sleep" in its entirety while eventually performing at Wake Forest University's Alumni Weekend Concert in Winston-Salem, NC in October 2010; Fiasco revealed to the crowd that the album would be finally released in March of 2011 (confirmed). As what you've read before about the protests above it wasn't until the 4th Quarter of 2010 that Fiasco's dedicated fan base protested outside the Atlantic Records Headquarters in New York City for the release of his third studio album, ''Lasers''. After the long haul, a Representative officially confirmed an announcement of a release date while would be on March 8, 2011; the first single off of ''Lasers'' was "The Show Goes On" was played at the protest then later released to the public via Fiasco's Official Webpage. The song samples the song "Float On" by Modest Mouse. On a National Level, it was released to iTunes on November 9, 2010 and later debuted at No. 57 on the Billboard Hot 100. The entire album was released on March 8, 2011 which coincidentally was the day it was the No. 1 album on iTunes; the producers involved on the album include Alex Da Kidd, King David "The Future" and Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis. Featured artists include Skylar Grey; Trey Songz; and John Legend.

Philanthropy and business ventures

In 2001, Fiasco co-founded with Charles "Chilly" Patton 1st & 15th Entertainment (or "FNF", named after the traditional twice-monthly paycheck dates), Although Fiasco was initially to serve as vice-president, he became CEO after Patton was convicted on drug charges. Fiasco and singer Matthew Santos were two of the most recognizable signed artists. In November 2009, Fiasco announced he would get "rid of the entire First and Fifteenth Record Label. Me and Sarah Green are the only artists on the label, like I got rid of the whole label. It was just such a ‘this isn’t right for you right now. This isn’t gonna work for you right now. You need to be focused on you. Do you really want that, do you really have the capacity to do it?’

In 2005, he founded "Righteous Kung-Fu", a company that designs fashions, sneakers, toys, video games, comic books, and graphics for album covers and skateboard decks. He has also sponsored a skateboard team and has endorsements from DGK Skateboards.

In January 2006, Fiasco signed with major footwear and apparel corporation Reebok becoming part of the "O.G" marketing campaign where rap artists such as Lil Wayne and Mike Jones designed their own personal colorway of the Reebok "O.G" model. Fiasco also runs his own fashion label under the name "Trilly & Truly". Together with Le Messie of FALSE from Singapore he also runs a collaborative clothing line called "Fallacy Of Rome".

In 2009, Fiasco performed in ''The People Speak'', a documentary feature film that employs musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's ''A People's History of the United States''.

On January 7, 2010, Fiasco joined musician Kenna, actress Jessica Biel, and other celebrities and activists for an expedition to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Summit on the Summit to raise awareness of the billions of people worldwide who lack access to sanitary drinking water.

On January 20, 2010, Fiasco released a track called "Resurrection" with Kenna in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The song, part of a compilation released through the charity Music for Relief, aimed to encourage donations for immediate relief and long-term recovery following the devastating disaster.

Political views

Fiasco is known for his anti-establishment views. In an interview with Stephen Colbert on the satirical news show ''The Colbert Report'', Fiasco stated his credo on political philosophy: "You should criticize power even if you agree with it." In another interview in June 2011 on the CBS program "What's Trending," Fiasco discussed the political content of his music while stating, "My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama and the United States of America. I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists." Despite his strong political opinions, Fiasco clearly states he does not vote in U.S. elections nor gets involves himself in U.S. politics which he clearly stated that it was "meaningless." For his strong political views, Fiasco has been getting lots of heat in the media like, the Young Turks for sharing his "liberal" politics but yet stating that voting is "meaningless"; this sparked the anchors of the Young Turks to conclude his statements to be "stupid". Fiasco has also appeared on Fox News' Network's The O'Reilly Factor in Late June 2011 where he continues to states that the "biggest terrorist in America is Obama" and he expresses in detail on what he believes; Bill O' Reilly caught him on his views and questioned how young adults envy his music and his character. The interview was a heavy debate on foreign policy after the statements on Obama being a terrorist which Fiasco makes it clear that he believes the United States Leadership is abusing their power.

Discography

''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' (2006)

''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool'' (2007)

''Lasers'' (2011)

''Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album'' (Rumored)

See also

List of awards and nominations received by Lupe Fiasco

References

External links

Lupe Fiasco at Allmusic

Lupe Fiasco at ''Rolling Stone''

Lupe Fiasco at Metacritic

Lupe Fiasco on Twitter

''Lupe Fiasco, Word Star'' – Lupe Fiasco interview with ''Chicago''

Category:1982 births Category:African American Muslims Category:African American rappers Category:American hip hop record producers Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Rappers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Living people Category:Rappers

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name	Kanye West
background	solo_singer
birth name	Kanye Omari West
birth date	June 08, 1977
birth place	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
origin	Chicago, Illinois, United States
genre	Hip hop
instrument	Vocals, keyboards, sampler, percussion, synthesizer
occupation	Producer, rapper, musician, singer
years active	1996–present
label	GOOD Music, Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam
associated acts	Go Getters, Child Rebel Soldier, Jay-Z, The Throne, Common, John Legend, Kid Cudi, Rihanna, Jeff Bhasker, Pusha T, Mos Def, Mr Hudson, Talib Kweli, Big Sean, A-Trak, Pharrell, Lupe Fiasco, RZA
website	}}

Kanye Omari West (; born June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album ''The Blueprint'', as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used pitched-up vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. However, subsequent productions saw him broadening his musical palette and expressing influences encompassing '70s R&B;, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock, folk, alternative, electronica, synth-pop, and classical music.

West released his debut album ''The College Dropout'' in 2004, his second album ''Late Registration'' in 2005, his third album ''Graduation'' in 2007, his fourth album ''808s & Heartbreak'' in 2008, and his fifth album ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' in 2010. West released a collaborative album, ''Watch the Throne'', with Jay-Z on August 8, 2011, which is the duo's first collaborative album. His five solo albums, all of which have gone platinum, have received numerous awards and critical acclaim. As of 2011, West has won a total of fourteen Grammy Awards. All albums have been very commercially successful, with ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' becoming his fourth consecutive No.1 album in the U.S. upon release. West has had 5 songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of July 2011, with "Gold Digger" selling 3,086,000, "Stronger" selling 4,402,000, "Heartless" selling 3,742,000, "E.T." selling over 4,000,000 and "Love Lockdown" selling over 3,000,000 placing him third in overall digital sales of the past decade. He has sold over 25 million digital songs in the United States placing him second for solo male artists on the list and sixth overall for best selling digital artists.

West also runs his own record label GOOD Music, home to artists such as John Legend, Common and Kid Cudi. West's mascot and trademark is "Dropout Bear," a teddy bear which has appeared on the covers of three of his five albums as well as various single covers and music videos. About.com ranked Kanye West No.8 on their "Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers" list. On May 16, 2008, Kanye West was crowned by MTV as the year's No.1 "Hottest MC in the Game." On December 17, 2010, Kanye West was voted as the MTV Man of the Year by MTV. Billboard ranked Kanye West No. 3 on their list of Top 10 Producers of the decade. West has also been included in the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as being listed in a number of ''Forbes''' annual lists.

Early life

Kanye West was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived with his parents. When he was three years old, his parents divorced, and he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. His father was Ray West, a former Black Panther who was one of the first black photojournalists at ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,'' and is now a Christian counselor. West's mother, Dr. Donda West, was a Professor of English at Clark Atlanta University, and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University before retiring to serve as West's manager. He was raised in a middle-class background, attending Polaris High School in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois after living in Chicago. When asked about his grades in high school, West replied, "I got A's and B's. And I'm not even frontin'".

West attended art classes at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and also enrolled at Chicago State University, but dropped out to focus on his music career. While attending school, West produced for local artists. He later gained fame by producing hit singles for major hip hop/R&B; artists, including Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Cam'ron, Paul Wall, Common, Mobb Deep, Jermaine Dupri, Scarface, The Game, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, John Legend among others. He also "ghost-produced" for his mentor Deric Angelettie, according to his song "Last Call" and the credits of Nas' "Poppa Was a Playa".

Music career

1996–2003: Career beginnings

Kanye West's first career productions came on Chicago rapper Grav's 1996 debut album ''Down to Earth''. West produced eight tracks on the album. While the album did not attract much attention and would be the only album released by Grav, West would soon be producing for higher profile artists. In 1998–1999 he produced for well-known artists such as Jermaine Dupri, Foxy Brown, Goodie Mob, and the group Harlem World.

West got his big break in the year 2000, when he began to produce for artists on Roc-a-Fella Records. He produced the well-received Jay-Z song "This Can't Be Life" off of the album ''The Dynasty: Roc La Familia''. West would later state that to create the beat for "This Can't Be Life", he sped up the drum beat from Dr. Dre's song "Xxplosive".

After producing for Jay-Z earlier, West’s sound was featured heavily on Jay-Z's critically acclaimed album ''The Blueprint,'' released September 11, 2001. His work was featured on the lead single "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)" and a diss track against Nas and Mobb Deep named "Takeover"; West has worked with Mobb Deep and Nas since the track's release.

After meeting great commercial success and critical acclaim for his productions on ''The Blueprint'', West became a sought after producer in the hip-hop industry, even before he became known as a rapper and solo artist. In the years 2002–2003 he would produce for artists such as Nas, Scarface, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, T.I., Ludacris, DMX, and Monica. He also continued producing for Roc-a-Fella Records artists and contribued four tracks to Jay-Z's follow up album to ''The Blueprint'', ''The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse''.

After great successes as a producer, West now looked to pursue a career as a rapper and solo artist, but struggled to get a record deal. Chris Anokute, then A&R; at Def Jam, said that when West regularly dropped by the office to pick up his producer checks he would play demos of solo material to Anokute in his cubicle and bemoan the fact that no one was taking him seriously as a rapper. Jay-Z admitted that Roc-A-Fella was initially reluctant to support West as a rapper, claiming that he saw him as a producer first and foremost. Multiple record companies felt he was not as marketable as rappers who portray the "street image" prominent in hip hop culture. Beginning his career as a rapper, Kanye West recorded the third verse on the song "The Bounce" off of Jay-Z's ''The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse'', an album he produced for, from the same label he was signed to as a rapper.

2004–05: ''The College Dropout'' and ''Late Registration''

On October 23, 2002, West was involved in a near fatal car crash while driving home from the recording studio. The crash provided inspiration for West's first single, "Through the Wire". West's faith is apparent in many of his songs, such as "Jesus Walks", which became a staple at his benefit performances, such as the Live 8 concert. These songs were featured on West's debut album, ''The College Dropout'', which was released on Roc-A-Fella Records in February 2004, and went on to receive critical acclaim. The album also defined the style for which West would become known, including wordplay and sampling. The album was eventually certified triple platinum. Guest appearances included Jay-Z, Ludacris, GLC, Consequence, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common, and Syleena Johnson. The album also featured the singles, "All Falls Down" and "The New Workout Plan", as well as Twista's number one single, "Slow Jamz". During 2003 West also co-produced songs for British singer Javine Hylton, even appearing in the music video to Real Things playing the love interest of Javine.

West was involved in a financial dispute over Royce Da 5'9"'s song "Heartbeat", produced by West and released on ''Build & Destroy: The Lost Sessions''. West maintains that Royce never paid for the beat, but recorded to it and released it; hearing him on the beat, the original customers decided not to buy it from West. After the disagreement, West vowed to never work with Royce again. Other Kanye West-produced hit singles during the period ''The College Dropout'' was released included "I Changed My Mind" by Keyshia Cole, "Overnight Celebrity" by Twista and "Talk About Our Love" by Brandy.

Taking a more eclectic route, West collaborated with American film score composer Jon Brion to construct his second album, ''Late Registration'', which was released on August 30, 2005. Like its predecessor, the sophomore effort garnered universal acclaim from music critics. ''Late Registration'' topped countless critic polls and was revered as the best album of the year by numerous publications, including ''USA Today'', ''Spin'', and ''Time''. ''Rolling Stone'' awarded the album the highest position on their end of the year record list and hailed it as a "sweepingly generous, absurdly virtuosic hip-hop classic." The record earned the number one spot on the ''Village Voice'''s Pazz & Jop critics' poll of 2005 for the second consecutive year. ''Late Registration'' was also a commercial success, selling over 860,000 copies in its first week alone and topping the ''Billboard 200''. Grossing over 2.3 million units sold in the United States alone by year's end, ''Late Registration'' was considered by industry observers as the sole majorly successful album release of the fall of 2005, a season that was plagued by steadily declining CD sales. The second album earned eight Grammy Award nominations including ''Album of the Year'' and ''Record of the Year'' for the song "Gold Digger". The album is certified triple platinum.

On August 22, 2005, the MTV special ''All Eyes On Kanye West'' aired, in which West spoke out against homophobia in hip-hop. He claimed that hip-hop has always been about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people." He then reflected on a personal experience. He said that he had a "turning point" when he realized one of his cousins was gay. He said regarding this experience: "This is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays." He drew comparison between African Americans' struggle for civil rights and today's gay rights movement. The following year, in an interview with ''Entertainment Weekly'', West further expounded his experiences with and views on the relationship between the black and gay communities.

In September 2005, West announced that he would release his Pastelle Clothing line in spring 2006: "Now that I have a Grammy under my belt and ''Late Registration'' is finished, I am ready to launch my clothing line next spring." In that year, West produced the hit singles "Go" by Common and "Dreams" by The Game.

2007–09: ''Graduation'' and ''808s & Heartbreak''

In 2007, it was announced that West would be starring in a series directed by Larry Charles. He has been working on the pilot episode for the past two years with Larry Charles and Rick Rubin. He also had this to say on January 14: "I wouldn't do something as cliché as a reality show. At least give me the credit for being more creative than that. It's a situational half-hour comedy. It's fictional, and loosely based on my life. " West also collaborated with Japanese hip-hop group Teriyaki Boyz to produce the single "I Still Love H.E.R.," a reference to Common's 1994 single "I Used to Love H.E.R.". Further to this, during a radio appearance in early 2007, West, like many of his peers, recorded an impromptu freestyle to the popular song "Throw Some D's." The song that to all other rappers was about automobile rims, was used by West to comically refer to D-cup breasts. Because of the unexpected success of the song, West went on to make a video for the freestyle, in which he is seen playing his 'Old Ass Cousin'.

West was also featured in a new song called "Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)". It was believed to be a single for, ''Graduation'', because he is featured on the track, but Nike quickly explained that it was for the Nike Air Force 1's anniversary. It was meant only to be an exclusive track for the company.

On March 25, 2007, he and his father Ray West supported World Water Day by having a "Walk for Water" rally. After a two-year break, West has returned to being a fashion columnist in lifestyle magazine ''Complex''. On July 7, 2007, West performed with The Police and John Mayer at the American leg of Live Earth. West hosted the August 17 edition of British comedy- variety show The Friday Night Project.

In July 2007, West changed the release date of ''Graduation'', his third album, from September 18, 2007, to the same release date as 50 Cent's album ''Curtis'', September 11, 2007. 50 Cent later claimed that if ''Graduation'' were to sell more records than ''Curtis,'' he would stop releasing solo albums. However, 50 Cent would later dispel his comments. The album has been certified double platinum. Guest appearances included T-Pain, Mos Def, and Lil Wayne.

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On August 26, 2007, West appeared as himself on the HBO television show ''Entourage'' which he used as a platform to premier his new single "Good Life" during the end credits. On September 9, 2007, West performed at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, losing in every category he was nominated for; he gave an angry speech immediately afterward. (see "Controversies" section)

Following the MTV stint, West was nominated in eight Grammy Award categories for the 50th annual Grammy Awards. He won four of them, including Best Rap Album for ''Graduation'' and Best Rap Solo Performance for "Stronger" from ''Graduation''. During the four-hour televised Grammy Awards ceremony, West also performed two songs: "Stronger" (with Daft Punk) and "Hey Mama" (in honor of his recently deceased mother).

West kicked off the Glow in the Dark Tour in Seattle at the Key Arena on April 16. The tour was originally scheduled to end in June in Cincinnati but was extended into August. Over the course of the tour West was joined by a varying group of opening acts, including Lupe Fiasco, Rihanna, N.E.R.D., DJ Craze, and Gnarls Barkley. On June 15, West was scheduled to perform a late night set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival. His performance started almost two hours late and ran for half of its alloted time, angering many fans in the audience. West later wrote an outraged entry on his blog, blaming the festival organizers as well as Pearl Jam's preceding set, which ran longer than expected.

On September 7, West debuted a new song "Love Lockdown" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. "Love Lockdown" features no rapping and only singing using an auto-tune device. This song appears on West's fourth studio album, ''808s & Heartbreak''. The new album was expected to be released on December 16, but West announced on his blog on September 24, 2008, that he had finished the album and would be releasing it sometime in November, earlier than previously scheduled. In early October, West made a surprise appearance at a T.I. concert in Los Angeles, where he stated that ''808s & Heartbreak'' was scheduled to be released on November 25, though it was actually released on the 24th, and that the second single is "Heartless". The album was another number one album for West, even though the first week numbers fell well short of ''Graduation'' with 450,145 sold.

West performed at the American Music Awards ceremony on November 23. That same night he won two AMA awards, including Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album for ''Graduation'' and Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Male Artist. West performed at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August 2008, along with Wyclef Jean and N.E.R.D. in support of Barack Obama. On January 20, 2009, Kanye West performed at the Youth Inaugural Ball hosted by MTV for Obama's inauguration.

On February 17, 2009, West was named one of Top 10 Most Stylish Men in America by ''GQ''. The next day, February 18, 2009, West won International Male Solo Artist at The Brit Awards 2009. West was not in attendance but accepted his award with a video speech, saying "Barack is the 'Best Interracial Male' but I'm proud to be the Best International Male in the world.

In April 2009, Kanye West recorded a song called "Hurricane" with 30 Seconds to Mars to appear on their album ''This Is War'', but was not released due to legal issues with both record companies. The song was eventually released on the deluxe version of ''This Is War'', titled "Hurricane 2.0".

2010–present: ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' and ''Watch the Throne''

In May 2010, West made an animated television guest appearance on Fox's animated television series ''The Cleveland Show'' (a spin-off of ''Family Guy'') as the voice behind "Kenny West", a rival of Cleveland Brown's son. In his first episode he performed in a rap battle with Cleveland's son. The producers stated working with West was a very good experience and a reason they chose him was because they knew he was a fan of ''Family Guy''. Kenny West re-appeared in the season 2 premiere of ''The Cleveland Show''.

West spent the first half of 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii, working on his new album with the working title ''"Good Ass Job"'', later named ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'', released on November 22, 2010. West has cited Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone as his musical inspirations for this album. Outside production is said to come from RZA, Q-Tip, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier. West also had Justin Vernon flown into his studio on Oahu after seemingly expressing interest in sampling one of Bon Iver's songs; Vernon proceeded to feature on a number of new tracks, including "Lost In The World," which features Vernon's vocal line from Woods.

On May 28, the Dwele-assisted first single from the album, entitled "Power", leaked to the Internet. On June 30, the track was officially released via iTunes. The upcoming music video was quoted as being "apocalyptic, in a very personal way" by the director Marco Brambilla.

On September 12, 2010, West performed a new song, "Runaway" featuring Pusha T, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Shortly after the performance, Kanye revealed he was working on a 35 minute short film based around the song. The movie is said to be influenced by film noir and concerns a fallen phoenix whom Kanye falls in love with. On October 15, 2010, Kanye West was ranked 3rd in BET's "Top Ten Rappers of the 21st Century" list.

''Watch the Throne'', a collaborative studio album by West and Jay-Z, was released by Def Jam Recordings on August 8, 2011. It has been under production since August 2010 as part of West's GOOD Friday initiative of releasing new songs every Friday between August 20 and Christmas 2010. West said through a recent interview with MTV that the album is "going to be very dark and sexy, like couture hip hop." He appeared at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, performing the track "Lost in the World" from ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy''. On January 6, 2011, Kanye announced via Twitter that the first official single from ''Watch the Throne'' would be a song called "H•A•M" produced by Lex Luger. The song was released on January 11, 2011. On January 23, 2011, Kanye revealed via his Twitter account that he will be releasing a new album in summer 2011. On April 17, 2011, West closed the Coachella Festival with a headlining set that received glowing praise from fans and critics alike. On July 13, the official tracklisting for ''Watch The Throne'' was revealed. On July 20, a track titled "Otis" from the album was released in the iTunes Store. It samples "Try a Little Tenderness" by Otis Redding.

On October 19, 2011, West announced on his Twitter plans for a Spring 2012 GOOD Music album release.

Other ventures

Business ventures

In August 2008, West revealed plans to open 10 Fatburger restaurants in the Chicago area; the first was set to open in September 2008 in Orland Park. The second followed in January 2009, while a third location is yet to be revealed, although the process is being finalized. His company, KW Foods LLC, bought the rights to the chain in Chicago. Additionally, West planned to launch his fashion career, and applied for internships with major European fashion houses. He was due to release his own clothing line called Past Tell in 2009. He also collaborated with Nike to release his own shoe, Air Yeezys.

On January 22, 2009, during Paris Fashion Week, West introduced his first shoe line designed for Louis Vuitton. The line was released in summer 2009.

On October 01, 2011, Kanye West premiered his women's fashion label, DW Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week. He received support from DSquared2 duo Dean and Dan Caten, Olivier Theyskens, Jeremy Scott, Azzedine Alaïa, and the Olsen twins, who were also in attendance during his show. His debut fashion show received mixed-to-negative reviews, ranging from reserved observations by Style.com to excoriating commentary by The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Elleuk.com, The Daily Telegraph, Harper's Bazaar and many others.

Philanthropy

West started the "Kanye West Foundation" in Chicago in 2003. On August 24, 2007, West hosted the inaugural benefit concert to launch the foundation's partnership with Strong American Schools. It is focused on helping Latino and African American children stay in school and to get a proper education through grade school, high school, and college. The foundation also helps children to stay in high school by finding a path through music. West has contributed over $500,000 to his foundation. The foundation has also been called the "Donda West Foundation".

Kanye West has appeared and participated in many fundraisers, benefit concerts, and has done community work for Hurricane Katrina relief, the Kanye West Foundation, the Millions More Movement, 100 Black Men of America, a Live Earth concert benefit, World Water Day rally and march, Nike runs, and a MTV special helping young Iraq War veterans who struggle through debt and PTSD a second chance after returning home.

Musical style and influences

At the start of his career, Kanye West's production style often used pitched-up vocal samples, usually from soul songs, with his own drums and instruments. His first major release featuring his trademark vocal sampling style was "This Can't Be Life", a track from Jay-Z’s ''The Dynasty: Roc La Familia''. West said he sped up the drum beat of Dr. Dre's "Xxplosive" to use as a replacement for his drums on "This Can't Be Life".

West has said that Wu-Tang Clan producer RZA influenced him in his style, and has said on numerous occasions that Wu-Tang rappers Ghostface Killah and Ol' Dirty Bastard were some of his all-time favorites, "Wu-Tang? Me and my friends talk about this all the time... We think Wu-Tang had one of the biggest impacts as far as a movement. From slang to style of dress, skits, the samples. Similar to the [production] style I use, RZA has been doing that." RZA himself has spoken quite positively of the comparisons, stating in an interview for ''Rolling Stone'', "All good. I got super respect for Kanye. He came up to me about a year or two ago. He gave me mad praising and blessings... For people to say Wu-Tang inspire Kanye, Kanye is one of the biggest artists in the world. That goes back to what we say: 'Wu-Tang is forever.' Kanye is going to inspire people to be like him." After hearing his work on ''The Blueprint'', RZA claimed that a torch-passing had occurred between him and West, saying, "The shoes gotta be filled. If you ain't gonna do it, somebody else is gonna do it. That's how I feel about rap today."

While his use of sampling has lessened over time, West's production continues to feature distinctive and intricate string arrangements. This characteristic arose from him listening to the English trip hop group Portishead, whose 1998 live album ''Roseland NYC Live'', with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra inspired him to incorporate string sections into his hip hop production. Though he was unable to afford live instruments beyond violin riffs provided by Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari around the time of his debut album, its subsequent commercial success allowed him to hire his very own eleven-piece string orchestra. For a time, West stood as the sole current pop star to tour with a string section.

West has stated on several occasions that outside of work, he favors listening to rock music over hip-hop. He cites Franz Ferdinand, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Killers as some of his favorite musical groups. Additionally, on ''Graduation'', West drew inspiration from arena rock bands such as U2, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin for melody and chord progression. Both a fan and supporter of indie culture, West uses his official website to promote obscure indie rock bands, posting up music videos and mp3s on a daily basis. This musical affinity is mutual, as West has collaborated with indie artists such as Santigold, Peter Bjorn and John and Lykke Li while his songs have gone on to be covered countless times by myriad rock bands.

Personal life

Relationships

Kanye West and designer Alexis Phifer ended their 18-month engagement in 2008. The couple had been dating on and off since 2002, with West eventually proposing in August 2006. According to a friend, the couple's relationship had become increasingly strained, burdened by the sheer amount of time and attention West was dedicating to his current concert tour. "It's always sad when things like this end, and we remain friends," Phifer told ''People''.

West was also in a high profile on/off relationship with Amber Rose from 2008 until the summer of 2010.

Mother's death

On November 10, 2007, West's mother, Donda West, died of complications from cosmetic surgery involving abdominoplasty and breast augmentation. TMZ reported that Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Andre Aboolian refused to do the surgery because Donda West had a health condition that placed her at risk for a heart attack. Aboolian referred her to an internist to investigate her cardiac issue. Donda never met with the doctor recommended by Aboolian and had the procedures performed by a third doctor, Jan Adams. She was 58 years old (1949–2007).

Adams sent condolences to Donda West's family but declined to publicly discuss the procedure because of confidentiality. He had previously been under scrutiny by the medical board. Adams appeared on ''Larry King Live'' on November 20, 2007 but left before speaking. Two days later, he appeared again, with his attorney, stating he was there to "defend himself." He said that the recently released autopsy results "spoke for themselves". The final coroner's report January 10, 2008 concluded that Donda West died of "coronary artery disease and multiple post-operative factors due to or as a consequence of liposuction and mammoplasty."

The funeral and burial for Donda West was held in Oklahoma City on November 20, 2007. West held his first concert following the funeral at The O2 in London on November 22. He dedicated a performance of "Hey Mama", as well as a cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", to his mother, and did so on all other dates of his Glow in the Dark tour.

At a December 2008 press conference in New Zealand, West spoke about his mother's death for the first time. "It was like losing an arm and a leg and trying to walk through that," he told reporters.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed the "Donda West Law," a legislation which makes it mandatory for patients to provide medical clearance for elective cosmetic surgery.

Legal issues

In December 2006, Robert "Evel" Knievel sued West for trademark infringement in West's video for "Touch the Sky." Knievel took issue with a "sexually-charged video" in which West takes on the persona of "Evel Kanyevel" and attempts flying a rocket over a canyon. The suit filed in federal court claims infringement on his trademarked name and likeness. Knievel also claims the "vulgar and offensive" images depicted in the video damage his reputation. The suit seeks damages and to stop distribution of the video. West's attorneys argued that the music video amounted to satire and therefore was covered under the First Amendment. Just days before his death in November 2007, Knievel amicably settled the suit after being paid a visit from West, saying, "I thought he was a wonderful guy and quite a gentleman."

On September 11, 2008, West and his road manager/bodyguard Don "Don C." Crowley were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport and booked on charges of felony vandalism after an altercation with the paparazzi in which West and Crowley broke the photographers' cameras. West was later released from the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division station in Culver City on $20,000 bail bond. On September 26, 2008 the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said it would not file felony counts against West over the incident. Instead the case file was forwarded to the city attorney's office, which charged West with one count of misdemeanor vandalism, one count of grand theft and one count of battery and his manager with three counts of each on March 18, 2009. West's and Crowley's arraignment was delayed from an original date of April 14, 2009.

West was arrested again on November 14, 2008 at the Hilton hotel near Gateshead after another scuffle involving a photographer outside the famous Tup Tup Palace nightclub in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was later released "with no further action", according to a police spokesperson.

Controversies

General media

West has had several controversies throughout his career. On September 2, 2005, during a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina relief on NBC, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, West was a featured speaker. When West was presenting alongside actor Mike Myers, he deviated from the prepared script. Myers spoke next and continued to read the script. Once it was West's turn to speak again, he said "George Bush doesn't care about black people." At this point, telethon producer Rick Kaplan cut off the microphone and then cut away to Chris Tucker, who was unaware of the cut for a few seconds. Still, West's comment reached much of the United States. Bush stated in an interview that the comment was "one of the most disgusting moments” of his presidency.

In January 2006, West again sparked controversy when he appeared on the cover of ''Rolling Stone'' in the image of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns.

In November, 2010, Kanye West, in a taped interview with Matt Lauer for the Today Show, West expressed regret for his criticism of Bush. "I would tell George Bush in my moment of frustration, I didn't have the grounds to call him a racist," he told Lauer. "I believe that in a situation of high emotion like that we as human beings don't always choose the right words." The following day, Bush reacted to the apology in a live interview with Lauer saying he appreciated the rapper's remorse. "I'm not a hater," Bush said. "I don't hate Kanye West. I was talking about an environment in which people were willing to say things that hurt. Nobody wants to be called a racist if in your heart you believe in equality of races."

Reactions were mixed, but some felt that West had no need to apologize. "It was not the particulars of your words that mattered, it was the essence of a feeling of the insensitivity towards our communities that many of us have felt for far too long," noted Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons. Dr. Boyce Watkins said that West was, "now part of the establishment, where waffling on your principles is fully expected. Bush deserved no apology, for you don’t apologize to a criminal after repudiating him for an egregious crime. " Bush himself was acceptive towards the apology, saying, "I appreciate that. It wasn't just Kanye West who was talking like that during Katrina, I cited him as an example, I cited others as an example as well. You know, I appreciate that."

Award shows

In 2004, West had his first of a number of incidents involving music award events. At the American Music Awards of 2004, West stormed out of the auditorium after losing Best New Artist to country singer Gretchen Wilson. He later commented, "I felt like I was definitely robbed [...] I was the best new artist this year." After the 2006 Grammy nominations were released, West said he would "really have a problem" if he did not win the Album of the Year, saying, "I don't care what I do, I don't care how much I stunt – you can never take away from the amount of work I put into it. I don't want to hear all of that politically correct stuff." On November 2, 2006, when his "Touch the Sky" failed to win Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards, West went onto the stage as the award was being presented to Justice and Simian for "We Are Your Friends" and argued that he should have won the award instead. Hundreds of news outlets worldwide criticized the outburst. On November 7, 2006, West apologized for this outburst publicly during his performance as support act for U2 for their Vertigo concert in Brisbane. He later spoofed the incident in the season premiere of ''Saturday Night Live''.

On September 9, 2007, West suggested that his race had to do with his being overlooked for opening the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) in favor of Britney Spears; he claimed, "Maybe my skin’s not right." West was performing at the event; that night, he lost all 5 awards that he was nominated for, including Best Male Artist and Video of the Year. After the show, he was visibly upset that he had lost at the VMAs two years in a row, stating that he would not come back to MTV ever again. He also appeared on several radio stations saying that when he made the song "Stronger" that it was his dream to open the VMAs with it. He has also stated that Spears has not had a hit in a long period of time and that MTV exploited her for ratings.

On September 13, 2009, during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards while Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me", West went on stage and grabbed the microphone to proclaim that Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time". He was subsequently removed from the remainder of the show for his actions. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech. West was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and by President Barack Obama, who called West a "jackass" in an off-the-record comment. In addition, West's VMA disruption sparked a large influx of Internet photo memes with blogs, forums and "tweets" with the "Let you finish" photo-jokes. Subsequently, West posted two apologies for the outburst on his personal blog; one on the night of the incident and the other the same day he appeared on ''The Jay Leno Show'', on September 14, 2009, where he apologized again. After Swift appeared on ''The View'' two days after the outburst, partly to discuss the matter, West called her to apologize personally. Swift said she accepted his apology. In September 2010, West wrote a series of apologetic tweets addressed to Swift including "Beyonce didn't need that. MTV didn't need that and Taylor and her family friends and fans definitely didn't want or need that" and concluding with "I'm sorry Taylor." West also revealed he had written a song for Swift and if she did not accept the song, he would perform it himself. However, on November 8, 2010, in an interview with a Minnesota radio station, West seemed to recant a bit of his past apologies by attempting to describe the act at the 2009 awards show as "selfless" and downgrade the perception of disrespect it created.

Discography

Solo Albums

''The College Dropout'' (2004)

''Late Registration'' (2005)

''Graduation'' (2007)

''808s & Heartbreak'' (2008)

''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' (2010)

Collaborations

''Watch the Throne'' (2011) – with Jay-Z

''G.O.O.D. Music'' (2012) – with GOOD Music artists

Filmography

''We Were Once a Fairytale'' (2009)

''Runaway'' (2010)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Kanye West at Beatbuggy

Category:1977 births Category:African American rappers Category:African American record producers Category:African American male singers Category:American bloggers Category:American Christians Category:American hip hop record producers Category:American music industry executives Category:American music video directors Category:American pop musicians Category:Songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Brit Award winners Category:Chicago State University alumni Category:Electro-hop musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hip hop musicians Category:Hip hop singers Category:Living people Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:Rappers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Roc-A-Fella Records artists Category:World Music Awards winners

ar:كانييه ويست be:Канье Уэст be-x-old:Канье Ўэст bg:Кание Уест ca:Kanye West cs:Kanye West da:Kanye West de:Kanye West es:Kanye West eo:Kanye West fa:کانیه وست fr:Kanye West fy:Kanye West gl:Kanye West ko:카니예 웨스트 hr:Kanye West ig:Kanyé West id:Kanye West it:Kanye West he:קניה וסט ka:კანიე უესტი sw:Kanye West lv:Kanje Vests lt:Kanye West hu:Kanye West mk:Кање Вест nl:Kanye West ja:カニエ・ウェスト no:Kanye West uz:Kanye West pl:Kanye West pt:Kanye West ro:Kanye West ru:Уэст, Канье simple:Kanye West sk:Kanye West sr:Kanje Vest sh:Kanye West su:Kanye West fi:Kanye West sv:Kanye West tl:Kanye West ta:கான்யே வெஸ்ட் th:คานเย เวสต์ tr:Kanye West uk:Каньє Вест vi:Kanye West zh:肯伊·威斯特

No I.D., officially known as Immenslope and also known as Ernest Wilson (born Dion Wilson in Chicago, Illinois), is a hip hop and R&B; record producer, also the vice-president of Def Jam Recordings, best known for his early work with Chicago rapper Common and is known as "The Godfather of Chicago hip hop".

As a co-producer (and sometimes ghost producer) for Jermaine Dupri & Co-Produced with The Legendary Traxster "Heat" by Twista & Co-Produced with The Legendary Traxster "I do It" by Big Sean, No I.D. has worked on hit singles such as "My Boo" by Usher and Alicia Keys, "Let Me Hold You" by Bow Wow featuring Omarion, and "Smile" by G-Unit, "Retrospect for Life" by Common Feat. Lauryn Hill, as well as the hip hop staple "I Used to Love H.E.R." and "Resurrection" which garnered Common his early fame. No I.D. also introduced Kanye West to hip hop production, inviting him to his sessions with Common when West was only beginning. He also introduced Kanye to a long time friend named Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua, who was A&R; for Roc-a-fella Records who eventually signed West to his imprint Hip Hop Since 1978 which launched West's career as an artist. Kanye cites No I.D. as his mentor in "Last Call," "Big Brother" and "Made in America."

In 1997, No I.D. released an album under his own name, ''Accept Your Own and Be Yourself (The Black Album).''

His second released was with Dug Infinite, a two-album package called ''The Sampler, vol. 1.'' He also released ''Invisible Beats'', a beat tape.

In 2007, he was the focus of perhaps the most attention of his career for producing two songs from Jay-Z's album ''American Gangster''. He has recently worked with such artists as Jay-Z (''The Blueprint 3''), Rhymefest, Plies, Big Sean, Killer Mike, Rick Ross, Drake (''Thank Me Later''), and Kanye West (''808's & Heartbreak'', ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy''), Young Jeezy, and Rihanna on their upcoming albums. No I.D. produced the first single for Jay-Z's 11th studio album ''The Blueprint 3'' titled "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" and his second single "Run This Town" Feat Rihanna & Kanye West. He's also working with Common for the first time since 1997, on his new album The Believer. He produced several tracks on J. Cole's upcoming debut album and he's also working with Nas on his new album.

No I.D. is currently the Executive VP of Def Jam Records. Formerly, he was President of GOOD Music, a record label founded by Kanye West.

Discography

Albums

1997: ''Accept Your Own and Be Yourself (The Black Album)''

2002: ''The Sampler, vol. 1''

2011: ''Cocaine 80's: The Pursuit EP''

Production

No I.D. production discography

;Common No I.D. produced most of these three Common albums:

''Can I Borrow a Dollar?''

''Resurrection''

''One Day It'll All Make Sense''

References

External links

Def Jam Recordings Official Website

No ID Vs Traxster Homepage

Fake Shore Drive Interview

XXL Interview

Entertainment Weekly

AllHipHop Interview

Rap Up

Category:African American record producers Category:Five Percenter Category:Nation of Islam Category:American hip hop record producers Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Chicago, Illinois Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

fr:No I.D. tr:No I.D.