Illinois became a state on December 3, 1818. Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which helped abolish slavery in the United States. Three U.S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama.

Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County.The city's population was 116,250 at the 2010 U.S. Census, which makes it the state's sixth most-populous city, the second largest outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (after Rockford), and the largest in central Illinois.As of 2018, the city's population was estimated to have decreased to ...

Etymology and nicknames. The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.

The Illinois River (Miami-Illinois: Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 273 miles (439 km) long, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The river drains a large section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of 28,756.6 square miles (74,479 km 2). The drainage basin extends into Wisconsin, Indiana, and a very small area of southwestern Michigan.

The Mile High Illinois, Illinois Sky-City, or simply The Illinois was a proposed skyscraper that is over 1 mile (1,600 m) high, conceived and described by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1957 book, A Testament.

Illinois is a state in the Midwastren region o the Unitit States.It is the 6t-maist populous U.S. state an 25t-lairgest state in terms o laund aurie, an is eften notit as a microcosm o the entire Unitit States. Wi Chicago in the northeast, smaw industrial ceeties an great agricultural productivity in northren an central Illinois, an naitural resoorces sic as coal, timmer, an petroleum in the ...

Champaign is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois, and the state's fourth-most populous city outside the Chicago metropolitan area. It is included in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area. Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign with its sister city of Urbana.

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (also known as U of I, Illinois, or colloquially as the University of Illinois or UIUC) is a public research university in Illinois and the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system.Founded in 1867 as a land-grant institution, its campus is located in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. ...

Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois.It is the second-most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County, California.As of 2017, the population was 5,211,263. Its county seat is Chicago, the most populous city in Illinois and the third-most populous city in the United States. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live in Cook County.