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Chicago metropolitan area

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Chicagoland.
File:Chicagoland.jpg
Chicagoland Radius Map Showing Zones.

Chicagoland is a common name for the Chicago metropolitan area in the USA. Chicagoland comprises the city of Chicago and the nine surrounding counties in the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. "Chicagoland" is often used in place of "Chicago metropolitan area" by local residents, businesses, governments, and planning agencies. The term originated in the pages of the Chicago Tribune in the 1900s.

Overview

The Chicago–Naperville-Joliet, Illinois–Gary, Indiana–Kenosha, Wisconsin Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area had 9,157,540 inhabitants during the 2000 census. Population estimates for 2003 place the Chicagoland population at approximately 9,650,000, which would make it the 25th most populous metropolitan area in the world. A larger Chicago Consolidated Statistical Area includes ten Illinois counties (Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane, McHenry, Kankakee, DeKalb, Kendall, and Grundy), five Indiana counties (Lake, Porter, Jasper, Newton, and LaPorte), and one Wisconsin county (Kenosha), with Walworth County, Wisconsin a likely addition before long. Chicagoland runs together with Milwaukee and Racine in Wisconsin, creating a megalopolis region, and in the coming years will probably find its urban area combining with nearby urban centers like Rockford, South Bend, and Benton Harbor. More ambitiously, by mid-century, Chicago may find itself anchoring a largely unbroken urban horseshoe shaped metro area spanning from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The suburbs, surrounded by easily annexed flat ground, have been expanding at a tremendous rate since the early 1960s. Naperville is noteworthy for being the only boomburb outside the Sunbelt and Mountain States regions (though Bolingbrook may join it in the next decade), and exurban Kendall County ranked as the third fastest-growing county in the United States with a population greater than 10,000 between 2004 and 2005.[1] One set of Chicagoland 2010 population estimates shows significant growth continuing into the near future. Settlement patterns in Chicagoland tend to follow those in the city proper: the northern suburbs along the shore of Lake Michigan are comparatively affluent, while the southern suburbs are less so, with lower median incomes and a lower cost of living. There are affluent areas in the northwest and western suburbs as well, that rival the northern suburbs. The southern portion of Chicagoland is occasionally called Illiana, a contraction of Illinois and Indiana.

Origin

The publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, was an inveterate civic booster. In his view, Chicagoland was the vast region in the center of the country, with Chicago as its economic and cultural capital. In many ways, what McCormick envisioned as Chicagoland is now described by the term flyover country.

Usage

While you sometimes see the word used in redundant phrases like "the Chicagoland area," "metro Chicagoland" or even "the greater metropolitan Chicagoland area," the correct usage is simply "Chicagoland" to mean the city of Chicago and its surrounding communities. Sometimes the term is employed to mean the suburbs only, but that is also incorrect.

The term is often used by advertisers ("See your Chicagoland Ford dealer") or by weathercasters ("A major snowstorm is expected in Chicagoland"). It would rarely be used outside the area. For example, people from Chicago or the surrounding suburbs would likely say "Chicago" or name their specific suburb in response to a question from an outsider as to where they are from.


List of counties

Illinois

Border counties

Indiana

Wisconsin

Anchor cities

Major airports

Suburbs with more than 100,000 inhabitants

Illinois

Indiana

Wisconsin

Suburbs with 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants

Illinois

Indiana

Wisconsin

Suburbs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants

Illinois

Indiana

Wisconsin

See also

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