- published: 16 Oct 2015
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The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Bears have won nine NFL Championships and one Super Bowl and hold the NFL record for the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the most retired jersey numbers. The Bears have also recorded more regular season and overall victories than any other NFL franchise.
The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois, in 1919, and moved to Chicago in 1921. It is one of only two remaining franchises from the NFL's founding (along with the Arizona Cardinals, which was originally also in Chicago). The team played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they now play at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, next to Lake Michigan. The Bears have a long-standing rivalry with the Green Bay Packers.
The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during the season. They hold their annual training camp from late July to mid-August at Ward Field on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois.
Chicago (i/ʃᵻˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃᵻˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the third most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois and the Midwest. The Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland, has nearly 10 million people and is the third-largest in the U.S. Chicago is the seat of Cook County.
Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and grew rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. The city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation: O'Hare International Airport is the busiest airport in the world when measured by aircraft traffic; it also has the largest number of U.S. highways and rail road freight. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranked seventh in the world in the 2014 Global Cities Index.As of 2014, Chicago had the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States at US$610.5 billion.