Chicago

State

Illinois

Country

USA

Continent

North America

Size

606 KM²

Population

7,300,000

Spending Budget

$70,211 - $271,000

Famous For

Lake Michigan located near Chicago is the only river which flows reverse
Inventions of the Chicago changed the whole world like Zenith, NBC 5 Chicago/WMAQ television station, John Fitzgerald Kennedy vs. Richard Milhous Nixon on CBS and Motorola
Engineering and innovation seem to go hand in hand with Chicago. It had the world first skyscraper, the 10-story Home Insurance Building, in 1885.
The O’Hare International Airport in Chicago is the world’s second busiest airport in terms of traffic movements.
Hot dogs, pizza and jazz music make it one of the favorite destinations by the tourists

Best Time to Visit

January
May
June
September
October

History

Chicago’s critical location on the water route linking the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River shaped much of its early history. It was populated by a series of native tribes who maintained villages in the forested areas near rivers. Beginning with Father Jacques Marquette and French Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet in 1673, a steady stream of explorers and missionaries passed through or settled in the region, but it was not until 1779 that the first nonnative resident made it his permanent home: Jean-Baptist-Point Du Sable maintained a thriving trading post near the mouth of the Chicago River until 1800, when he moved out of the region. Within a few years the federal government had erected Fort Dearborn to establish a military presence in the area. The garrison was located on the south bank at the river mouth; it was destroyed during the War of 1812 but was rebuilt in 1816. By that time, numerous traders linked the region with international fur markets. Even after Illinois became a state in 1818, however, Chicago remained a small settlement. It was incorporated as a town in 1833 with a population of about 350. Population growth remained stagnant until the federal government allocated funding that allowed work to begin on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, a vital link between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River. Because the project was to be financed largely by sales of adjacent land, which would benefit from the commerce it brought, the canal helped to fill Chicago with speculators. The boom led to a second incorporation, this time as a city, on March 4, 1837; the population was 4,170. That same year a devastating national economic depression delayed the city’s development for several years. Canal construction drew thousands of Irish labourers to the area, when what was supposed to be a simple ditch a few hundred yards long grew into a waterway of some 75 miles (120 km), often cut through solid rock. After the canal opened in 1848, it brought grain and other raw materials to the city, while providing what was then a fast and convenient means of travel to the interior of the state. Chicago’s railway age also began in 1848, when a locomotive named the Pioneer arrived by ship from Buffalo, New York, and went into service for the new Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. The line’s 11-mile (18-km) track extended straight west from the city, but its namesake destination, the lead-mining metropolis in the northwest corner of the state, declined in importance before extensions even reached it. Other lines soon extended to the west, including the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Rock Island, and the Illinois Central. The Chicago and Milwaukee line linked the rival ports by rail. In 1852 two separate lines entered from the east and provided direct rail service to the Eastern Seaboard. By the beginning of the 20th century, no fewer than 30 interstate routes fanned out from the city, and the resulting ease in reaching both raw materials and markets contributed to the city’s rapid commercial and industrial development. Most important of all, Chicago was the terminus of every one of the railroads; passengers, raw materials, and finished goods all had to be transferred between lines in the city, thus contributing to an extraordinary development of hotels, restaurants, taxicabs, warehouses, rail yards, and trucking companies. The railroad, along with the telegraph, the grain elevator, agricultural newspapers, and the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, facilitated the collection of commodities from the farm belt, which was rapidly developing to the west. The city soon became the focal point of a “golden funnel” that collected and processed grain, lumber, and meat and then sent them to markets in the eastern United States and Europe. Trade encouraged ancillary industries such as the manufacture of steel rails and railroad equipment, shipbuilding, packaging, and printing, as well as the development of hotels and restaurant facilities. However, nothing at that time personified Chicago industry more than meatpacking and the vast Union Stock Yards on the city’s Near Southwest Side. Chicago rebuilt quickly, reached more than a half million residents in 1880, and accomplished construction miracles. As a response to public health concerns, the newly formed Sanitary District of Metropolitan Chicago began work in 1889 on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the waterway that when opened in 1900 not only allowed larger vessels to pass through the port of Chicago but also made it possible to reverse the flow of the Chicago River; the improvement in public health once pollutants were carried away from Lake Michigan was dramatic. Meanwhile, a host of talented architects that included Louis Sullivan, Dankmar Adler, William Holabird, Daniel H. Burnham, John Wellborn Root, and William Le Baron Jenney, who had been attracted to Chicago by the postfire rebuilding opportunities, stayed on in the 1880s to design a new generation of even taller downtown buildings. Department stores and offices crowded into the central area, and industrial growth along the river branches and rail lines was equally phenomenal. Commuter railroads and transit improvements promoted outward residential dispersal of the middle class, a clientele served by a young Frank Lloyd Wright and the emerging “Prairie school” architects. This suburban boom prompted the city to annex some 125 square miles (324 square km) in 1889, which included many adjacent communities and also much open farmland.

Present Day

Chicago, city, seat of Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. With a population hovering near three million, Chicago is the state’s largest and the country’s third most populous city. In addition, the greater Chicagoland area—which encompasses northeastern Illinois and extends into southeastern Wisconsin and northwestern Indiana—is the country’s third largest metropolitan area and the dominant metropolis of the Midwest. The original site for Chicago was unremarkable: a small settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River near the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Indeed, a common notion for the origin of the city’s name is an Algonquian word for a wild leek (or onion) plant that grew locally. However, Chicago’s location at the southwestern end of the vast Great Lakes system could not have been more ideal as the country expanded westward in the 19th century, and perhaps this is reflected in another interpretation of the Native American term as meaning “strong” or “great.” Regardless of which derivation is correct, it was soon recognized that the Chicago River formed a critical link in the great waterway that arose mid-century between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River. With the rise of railways soon thereafter, the young city became the country’s railway hub, which helped diversify the city’s rapidly growing industrial base. Chicago continued as America’s crossroads with the explosive growth of air travel after World War II, which eased the city’s transition into a postindustrial economy. Chicago sprawls along the lakeshore and extends inland to meet its suburbs in a ragged line. At its greatest extent, the city is some 25 miles (40 km) from north to south and 15 miles (25 km) from east to west. Area 228 square miles (591 square km). Pop. (2000) 2,896,016; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Division, 7,628,412; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Area, 9,098,316; (2010) 2,695,598; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Division, 7,883,147; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Area, 9,461,105.

Future

Besides church steeples and skyscrapers, smokestacks have long dominated the Chicago horizon. The city’s position as a rail hub and a port aided its use of the Midwest’s raw materials to produce a wide range of goods: light manufactures such as food, food products, candy, pharmaceuticals, and soap; communication equipment, scientific instruments, and automobiles; and refined petroleum, petroleum products, and steel. The city also became a major printing and publishing centre. This diversity originally grew out of Chicago’s role as a transshipment point for eastbound grain and lumber as well as meat, which was smoked or packed in salt. The city assumed a new role as manufacturer of military supplies during the American Civil War, adding leather goods, steel rail, and food processing. Although railroading, steel, and meatpacking continued to be the largest employers, by the late 19th century manufacturing was branching into chemicals, furniture, paint, metalworking, machine tools, railroad equipment, bicycles, printing, mail-order sales, and other fields that were considered the cutting edge in their day. The production of most of the country’s telephone equipment made Chicago the Silicon Valley of an earlier era. Industrial diversification also depended on a skilled workforce, whose numbers were enhanced through a tradition of innovative vocational training. Although Chicago failed to attract the automobile-manufacturing dominance it sought, its other industries thrived through much of the 20th century. It became a major radio and electronics centre during the 1920s. Like all manufacturing cities, Chicago was devastated by the Great Depression. The World War II boom involved more than 1,400 companies producing a wide range of military goods. Diversification, however, also made Chicago’s job market vulnerable to changes in almost any industry. In addition, the city’s abundant multistory factory buildings, which were often located in congested districts, could not compete with newer suburban industrial parks that had their sprawling single-story plants and access to expressways. Many companies sought new (and cheaper) labour markets south and west in the Sun Belt or overseas while keeping their headquarters in Chicago. Estimates of industrial jobs lost during the first four postwar decades run as high as one million, but manufacturing has remained a significant—if diminished—component of the regional economy. The drop in manufacturing’s preeminence has been mirrored by a dramatic rise in the service sector, which now employs some one-third of the city’s workforce. Notably, Chicago has fallen back on its original preindustrial role as a trading centre. The city’s rapid early growth and its location as the rail hub amid the country’s farm belt made it the logical site for commodities trading. In 1848, traders created the Chicago Board of Trade to rationalize the process of purchasing and forwarding grain to Eastern markets. Over the years the scope of its trading expanded to include a number of commodities, and in 1973 it spun off an independent Chicago Board Options Exchange to regularize trading of corporate stock options. Meanwhile, in 1874 the new Chicago Produce Exchange began providing trading services for butter, eggs, poultry, and other farm product markets; in 1919 it changed its name to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The fourth trading institution, the Chicago Stock Exchange, was organized in 1882 to handle corporate securities; mergers with exchanges in other cities led to it being renamed the Midwest Stock Exchange in 1949, but the original name was restored in 1993. All four of these institutions—along with trading, banking, and other financial functions—have made the downtown LaSalle Street district synonymous with Chicago’s regional dominance, though the long-standing tradition of face-to-face trading that built them has experienced increased competition from electronic trading.

Must Visit Places ------------

Navy Pier

Navy Pier is a great place to be able to experience the lake environment without actually going in the water. Navy Pier on the lake has the Centennial Wheel allow you to get a 360° view of the city and the lake.

Lake Michigan

You can take a boat ride or cruise around in the lake. There are many tour companies giving those services.

Lake Shore Drive

This is a very beautiful and scenic route along the shores of Lake Michigan that offers amazing views of the city of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Afternoon till sunset provides a beautiful view of both the city, the skyline and the lake, while nigh time drive allows you to be mesmerised by the city lights.

Soldier Field

Located along Lake shore drive, it is an American football and soccer field, a must visit for sports fans, especially during a live match.

Museums

Chicago Children’s Museum (inside Navy Pier), Museum of Science and Industry (along Lake Shore Drive), the Museum Campus (South of the Loop and east of Michigan Avenue), Adler Planetarium

Aquarium and zoos

John G Shedd Aquarium (along Lake Shore Drive), the Brookfield Zoo (formally the Chicago Zoological Society) and Lincoln Park Zoo.

Nature parks/spaces

Grant Park (near Loop community), Millennium Park (at the north-western corner of Grant Park), the Chicago Botanic Garden (in Glencoe) and the belts of county forest preserves around the city.