Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, (commonly abbreviated SIUE or The "e"), is a four-year, coeducational, public university in Edwardsville, Illinois, United States about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and is the younger and smaller of the two major institutions of Southern Illinois University system. The University offers graduate programs through its Graduate School.

In fiscal year 2011, SIUE faculty and staff received more than $34 million in grants and contracts for research, teaching and service initiatives--- which ranked 6th among the 53 comparable public and private universities. "A significant portion" of these funds was for work done through the East St. Louis Center. Otherwise, over $6 million was awarded for 115 research grants from agencies that included the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses. Glenn Poshard is President of Southern Illinois University.

The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Trustees. Seven members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. Two members are elected by the student bodies of the Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses.

Founded in Carbondale in 1869 as Southern Illinois Normal College, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC, usually referred to as SIU) is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system and is the fourth oldest of Illinois' thirteen (13) state universities.

SIUC includes eight (8) colleges and three (3) schools--- the Graduate School and the School of Law in Carbondale and the School of Medicine in Carbondale and Springfield (see below). Considered to be a "National Research University," SIUC offers Associate, Baccalaureate, Post-Baccalaureate, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in 222 academic programs.

Southern Illinois (also known as "Little Egypt" or "Egypt") is the southern third of the state of Illinois. With the area code 618, the southern part of Illinois is geographically, culturally, and economically distinct from the rest of the state. The region is surrounded on three of four sides by the most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Wabash and Ohio rivers to the east and south, and the Mississippi River and its connecting Missouri River to the west.

Southern Illinois' most populated city is currently Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Collinsville, Edwardsville, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. It also has a campus at Edwardsville. Residents travel to amenities in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky.

The area has a population of 1.2 million people, who live mostly in rural towns and cities separated by extensive farmland and the Shawnee National Forest. The two most dense areas of population are Metro-East, which is the partly industrialized Illinois portion of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area and the Carbondale-Marion-Herrin, Illinois Combined Statistical Area, centered on Carbondale and Marion, a two-county area that is home to 123,272 residents.

Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as 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 Saint 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. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.

Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. 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.