Illinois Details

Illinois is the most populous and demographically contrastive Midwestern state in the nation. It is the 21st state admitted to the United States. Illinois has a broad economy, with Chicago in the northeast being a small industrial city and a great productivity center in central and western Illinois. Illinois is also an important transportation hub that connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. Approximately 66% of Illinois population resides in the northeastern corner of the state, primarily within the city of Chicago and the surrounding area.

Illinois is home to countless historical buildings, 262 parks, 80 lakes, 100 rivers, and numerous creeks. It plays hosts to endless outdoor adventures. Watching boats and barge rise and seeing how one of the locks and legendary canals work and then move onward is experiencing it in its finest. Even the great President Abraham Lincoln, spent thirty years in Illinois and considered it to as his true home. Illinois lives up to its name as the gateway and the beginning of the westward passage. Illinois’ Chicago is the starting point to the famous Route 66. Combining it with some of the best amusement parks, museums, symphonies, sports teams in the world and one of the friendliest states in the country, you’ll realize what Illinois is already now. The Land of the Great President Lincoln is certainly one of the amazing places to visit.

The Illinois Territory was founded in 1809 and it has an enormous history. The Cahokia mounds site is believed to have been the largest political, cultural, religious and economic urban center for centuries in North America. Calculations show that the city has existed around 650 A.D and mysteriously disappeared in the 1400s. French explorers, Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette both discovered Illinois and Mississippi Rivers in 1673. The state began as part of the French empire in 1763 after the Britons claimed it. In 1783, the British Empire ceded the lands becoming part of the Northwest Territory.