Illinois is a state in the Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the  fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th most land area.  Its capital city is Springfield in the center of the state, and the state’s largest city is Chicago, located in northeastern Illinois.

Present-day Illinois was inhabited by Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in the 17th-century Illinois Country, as part of their sprawling colony of New France. A century later, the revolutionary war Illinois campaign prefigured American involvement in the region. Following U.S. Independence in 1783, which made the Mississippi River the national boundary, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River. Illinois was soon part of the United States’ oldest territory, the Norwest Territories, and in 1818, it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state’s rich prairie into some of the world’s most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany, Sweden and elsewhere.

In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation, especially in Chicago, which became the world’s fastest growing city by the late 19th century. 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 became one of America’s most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large black community, particularly in Chicago, which became a leading cultural, economic, and population center; the Chicago metropolitan area holds about 65% of the state’s 12.8 million residents.