Dominating the state of Illinois is Chicago, the largest city in the Midwest, with its sky-high architecture, lakeside beaches, superb museums, restaurants and clubs. But digging deeper, Illinois looks very different – the land of Hemingway’s “wide lawns and narrow minds,” “Lincoln’s land,” and the land of corn dogs, pies, and open-air movie theaters along America’s Main Street.
- Countryaah – Cities in Illinois: List of all municipalities in the state of Illinois, including cities and towns of Illinois.
Major cities: the capital of Springfield, the cities of Bloomington-Normal, Carbondale, Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, Galena, Jolit, Nauvoo, Peoria.
How to get there
The two main state airports located in Chicago are O’Hare and Midway airports. There are other regional airports in Illinois, including those in Springfield, Rockford, Peoria, Bloomington Normal, and St. Louis.
By train
The Amtrak rail network “covers” many cities in the state, but all Amtrak routes start and end in Chicago.
Trains arrive in Chicago from the east and west coasts, north and south of the country: from Milwaukee, Seattle, Washington, New York, Boston and other cities. Trains following the Chicago-St. Louis line and passing through the cities of Joliet, Dwight, Pontiac, Bloomington-Normal, Lincoln, Springfield, Carlinville, leave four times a day in both directions. One of the trains on this route, the Texas Eagle, connects Chicago with San Antonio.
Trains on the Chicago-Gailsburg-Quincy route arrive in Chicago twice a day from Los Angeles or San Francisco and travel via Salt Lake City and Denver.
Trains on the Chicago-Carbondale route depart three times a day in both directions. One of the trains on this route arrives from New Orleans, passing through the cities of Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis. In addition, a daily train arrives in Chicago from Indianapolis.
By car
Illinois is accessible from I-39, I-90 and I-94 through Wisconsin, I-74 and I-80 through Iowa, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70 and I- 72 through Missouri, along I-24 through Kentucky, along I-64, I-70, I-74, I-80, I-90 and I-94 through Indiana.
Entertainment and attractions in Illinois
In the south of the state is one of the largest protected forests in the United States – the Shawnee National Forest, covering an area of 1100 square meters. km. Founded in 1939 by US President Franklin Roosevelt, Shawnee is the natural habitat of many deciduous trees, as well as other plants and animals native to the region. Several thousand years ago, during the melting of glaciers in the territory of the present national forest, the Little Grand Canyon was formed, in the deep shade of which relict species of Arctic plants grew, preserved in the forest from ancient times. Here, in Shawnee, there is an artificially created Cedar Lake, formed by the Cedar Creek Dam.
The dominant city of the state of Chicago stretches along the southwestern shore of one of the Great Lakes – Lake Michigan
. Chicago is the birthplace of the blues and the origins of jazz, as well as the embodiment of the very idea of skyscrapers. Chicago is a city of first-class museums, kilometers of sandy beaches and huge parks, among which it is worth highlighting the Museum of Science and Industry, the museum campus with a huge planetarium and aquarium, Millennium Park.
Oak Park, in the suburbs of Chicago, is the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, where a house has been preserved, now a museum dedicated to the American writer.
The state capital, Springfield is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. Here are the Capitol and the Presidential Library, as well as the house-museum of the 16th President of the United States and his resting place in Oak Ridge Cemetery.
The Urbana-Champaign urban agglomeration, which has grown right in the middle of the prairies, is the largest of the University of Illinois campuses, and the agglomeration itself, formed by the merger of the two cities, attracts with its many museums, including the Champaign County Historical Museum, the Krannert Museum of Art, and the William and Clarice Spurlock Museum.
