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And here's a treat! From the deleted page (as a hoax) Republic of Illinois (where by the way I first met Y0u). Look how well written it is!
Republic of Illinois
The Republic of Illinois is a country in North America. Initially a soverign state within the United States of America, it declared its independance in 2005 from the federal government on July 14th. Illinois is a democratic constitutional federal republic of one hundred and two provinces. Located in central North America, the Republic of Illinois is primarily an enclave of the United States of America, having only a short border on the contested Midwestern Ocean. Illinois, much like South Africa, has opted for not one but many Capitols. Springfield, Illinois (located in Sangamon Province) serves as the nations executive and legislative capitol, Chicago, Illinois (located in Cook Province) serves as the economic capitol, and Champaign, Illinois (located in Champaign Province serves as the judicial capitol.
The Republic of Illinois | |
---|---|
Motto: Soverignty above Union (2005–present) | |
Anthem: Above the prairie | |
Location of Illinois | |
Capital | Springfield, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, Champaign, Illinois |
Largest city | Chicago |
Official languages | English de facto |
Government | Democratic federal republic |
Independence | |
• Water (%) | 4.00% |
Population | |
• July 2005 estimate | 12,419,293 (67th) |
• 2000 census | 12,419,293 |
GDP (PPP) | 2005 estimate |
• Total | $528,904 million (22nd) |
• Per capita | $32,965 (10th) |
Currency | US dollar ($) (USD) |
Time zone | UTC-6 |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 |
Calling code | 1 |
Internet TLD | .gov .edu .mil .us .um |
Current Situation
Details are sketchy at the moment, but the new republic is entering into an increasing state of panic over the secession of Illinois from the Union.
Independance
Illinois declared independance from the United States of America in July of 2005. The state has organized its military and expects resistance from its formal colonial rulers. As of yet no official response to this move has been made by the USA, and the fledgling nation has yet to be recognized by foreign powers.
History
Pre-Columbian
Cahokia, the urban center of the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. That civilization vanished circa 1400-1500 for unknown reasons. The next major power in the region was the Illiniwek Confederation, a political alliance among several tribes. The Illiniwek gave Illinois its name. The Illini suffered in the seventeenth century as Iroquois expansion forced them to compete with several tribes for land. The Ilini were replaced in Illinois by the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes.
European exploration
French explorers Jacques Marquette,S.J. and Louis Joliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. As a result of their exploration, Illinois was part of the French empire until 1763, when it passed to the British. The area was ceded to the new United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory.
The 1800s
The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809. In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. Early U.S. settlement began in the south part of the state and quickly spread northward, driving out the native residents. With the 1832 Black Hawk War, the last native tribes were driven out of northern Illinois.
Illinois is known as the "Land of Lincoln" because it is here that the 16th President spent his formative years. Chicago gained prominence as a canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois' largest city (see History of Chicago).
The Civil War
During the Civil War, over 250,000 Illinois men served in the Union Army, more than any other northern state except New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Beginning with President Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments (see Illinois in the Civil War), which were numbered from the 7th IL to the 156th IL. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also mustered, as well as two light artillery regiments.
Government
The state government of Illinois is modeled after the federal government with adaptations originating from traditions cultivated during the state's frontier era. As codified in the state constitution, there are three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch is led by the Governor of Illinois. Legislative functions are given to the Illinois General Assembly, comprised of the 118-member Illinois State House of Representatives and the 59-member Illinois State Senate. The judiciary is comprised of the state supreme court, which oversees the lower appelate courts and circuit courts.
- The Governor of Illinois is Rod Blagojevich (Democrat)
- The Lieutenant Governor of Illinois is Pat Quinn (Democrat)
- The Secretary of State of Illinois is Jesse White (Democrat)
- The Treasurer of Illinois is Judy Baar Topinka (Republican)
- The Senior United States Senator is Richard J. Durbin (Democrat)
- The Junior United States Senator is Barack Obama (Democrat)
As the birthplace of the Republican party, the GOP was long dominant in Illinois. This has changed and the state has supported Democratic presidential candidates in the last four elections. John Kerry easily won the state's 21 electoral votes in 2004 by a margin of 11 percentage points with 54.8% of the vote. It is the most liberal of the midwestern states. Republicans dominate most of the state's rural areas, especially in the southeast, and the suburban counties of Chicago. Barack Obama is the only black U.S. Senator.
Geography
It is in the north-central U.S. and borders on Lake Michigan. Surrounding states are Wisconsin to the north, Iowa and Missouri to the west, Kentucky to the south, and Indiana to the east. Illinois also borders Michigan, but only via a water boundary in Lake Michigan.
Illinois has three major geographical divisions. The first is Chicagoland, including the city of Chicago, its suburbs, and the adjoining exurban area into which the metropolis is expanding. This region includes a few counties in Indiana and Wisconsin and streches across much of the Northern Illinois toward the Iowa border, generally along and north of Interstate 80. This region is cosmopolitan, densely populated, industrialized, and settled by a variety of ethnic groups. The city of Chicago is heavily Democratic. While this tendency has historically been balanced by Republican voters in the suburbs, Democrats have significantly increased their suburban support in the past decade.
Southward and westward, the second major division is Central Illinois, an area of rolling hills and flat prairie. Known as the Land of Lincoln, it is characterized by small towns and mid-sized cities. Agriculture, particularly corn and soybeans, figures prominently. Major cities include famously average Peoria, Springfied (the state capital), and Champaign-Urbana (home of the University of Illinois). This region's largely rural character helps to sustain a heavily Republican voting pattern and widespread antipathy toward Chicago.
The third division is Southern Illinois, or Little Egypt, distinguished from the other two by its warmer climate, different mix of crops (including some cotton farming in the past), more rugged unglaciated topography, coal mining, and proximity to the juncture of the Mississippi River and Ohio River. The combination of coal mining and industrialization, especially in the region around Saint Louis, Missouri, has caused the region to lean Democratic politically. This division comprises the area generally along and south of Interstate 70.
McLean County is the largest county in terms of land area, at 1,184 sq mi., while Cook County is the largest county in terms of population, at 5,327,777. Both figures are as of 2004.
In extreme northwestern Illinois the Driftless Zone, a region of unglaciated and therefore comparatively higher and more rugged topography, occupies a small part of the state.
Economy
The 2003 total gross state product for Illinois was $499 billion, placing it 5th in the nation. The per capita income was $32,965.
Illinois' agricultural outputs are corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, dairy products and wheat. Its industrial outputs are machinery, food processing, electrical equipment, chemical products, publishing, fabricated metal products, transportation equipment, petroleum and coal.
Demographics
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2003, the population of Illinois was 12,653,544. At the northern edge of the state on Lake Michigan lies Chicago, the nation's third largest city. In 2000, 23.3% of the population lived in the city of Chicago, 43.3% in Cook county and 65.6% in the Illinois's part of the Chicagoland the leading industrial and transportation center in the region. The rest of the population lives in the smaller cities and on the farms that dot the state's gently rolling plains.
The racial makeup of the state is as follows:
- 67.8% White
- 15.1% Black
- 12.3% Hispanic
- 3.4% Asian
- 0.2% American Indian
- 1.9% Mixed Race
The top 5 ancestry groups in Illinois are German (19.6%), African American (15.1%), Irish (12.2%), Mexican (9.2%), Polish (7.5%).
German-Americans dominate most of Illinois, especially in the Saint Louis area. Blacks predominate in the city of Chicago, East St. Louis, and the southern tip of the state. Residents of American and British ancestry are concentrated in the southeastern part of the state. Metropolitan Chicago has the greatest numbers of Irish, Mexican, and Polish residents.
7.1% of Illinois' population were reported as under 5, 26.1% under 18, and 12.1% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 51% of the population.
Religion
Protestants are the largest religious group in Illinois, however unlike the other Midwestern states Illinois is not overwhelmingly Protestant (Less than half of the people consider themselves Protestants). Roman Catholics, who are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago, account for almost 30% of the population.
The religious affiliations of the people of Illinois are:
- Christian – 78%
- Protestant – 48%
- Baptist (African American and American) – 12%
- Lutheran – 7%
- Methodist – 7%
- Presbyterian – 3%
- Other Protestant – 19%
- Roman Catholic – 29%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Protestant – 48%
- Other Religions – 4%
- Non-Religious – 18%
Important cities and towns
Population > 1,000,000 Population > 100,000
|
Important Suburbs of Chicago
|
of St. Louis of Rockford of Peoria |
Other cities > 10,000 population |
Counties of Illinois
Education
Illinois State Board of Education
The Illinois State Board of Education or ISBE, autonomous of the governor and the state legislature, 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 an annual school report card. The ISBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.
There is current debate as to the role of the ISBE and whether or not its autonomous relationship with the governor and the state legislature is appropriate. In 2002, the Office of the Governor proposed the creation of a monolithic statewide department of education to replace the ISBE. However, direct control of the new department would fall under the state governor's jurisdiction. The structure would mimic the system employed by the Hawaii State Department of Education, which has no local school districts. Opponents to the proposal argue that local communities would lose control over what their children would learn in public schools and the means by which those public schools operate.
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. In some cases, elementary, middle and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district.
- See List of school districts in Illinois for a listing of all school districts, by county.
- See List of high schools in Illinois for a partial list of high schools.
Colleges and universities
While many students enter the military or join the workforce directly from high school, students have the option of applying to colleges and universities in Illinois. Notable Illinois institutions of higher education include Loyola University Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Chicago and the several branches of the University of Illinois. Illinois is also home to 49 colleges in the Illinois community college system.
List of colleges and universities
Professional sports teams
People
- Ronald Reagan, the 40th President, was born in Tampico, Illinois.
- Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, is buried in Springfield, Illinois
State symbols
- State animal: White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
- State bird: Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
- State capital: Springfield
- State dance: Square dance
- State fish: Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus)
- State flower: Purple violet (Viola sororia)
- State fossil: Tully Monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium)
- State insect: Monarch butterfly
- State mineral: Fluorite
- State motto: "State sovereignty, national union"
- State prairie grass: Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)
- State slogan: "Land of Lincoln"
- State song: "Illinois"
- State snack: Popcorn
- State tree: White oak (Quercus alba)
See also
- Little Egypt
- Fort Sheridan, Illinois
- List of ZIP Codes in Illinois
- U.S. presidential election, 2004, in Illinois
External links
- Illinois News
- US Census Bureau
- Illinois Data
- GenealogyBuff.com - Illinois Library Data Files
- Illinois Obituary Links
- Illinois Newspapers