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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 state of Illinois, five in Indiana, and one in 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 Consolidated Statistical Area (fully, the Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City CSA) had a population of 9,312,554, according to the most recent census in 2000. Based upon county estimates released in March 2006 from the Census Bureau, the 2005 population has increased to 9,661,840. The metro area is comprised of 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). The Greater Chicagoland area is the third largest urban center in the United States, and 1 in every 30 Americans call it home. 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 the term Chicagoland may stand alone, it is sometime used in phrases like "the Chicagoland area," "metro Chicagoland" or even "the greater Chicagoland area." The term is often used by advertisers ("See your Chicagoland Ford dealer") or by weathercasters ("A major snowstorm is expected in Chicagoland"). It is rarely used outside the area, as people from Chicago or the surrounding suburbs would likely name "Chicago" or their specific suburb to define their town of origin to an outsider.

List of counties

Illinois

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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