Chicago is the third largest city in the United States and one of the country’s leading industrial, commercial, transportation, and financial centers. Chicago covers a land area of 227.1 square miles and extends 29 miles along Lake Michigan. It occupies flatland traversed by two short rivers: the Chicago River, which flows west from the lake through the downtown area, where it forks into a North Branch and a South Branch; and the Calumet River, in the south, which connects with the small Lake Calumet.After a population decline since the 1950s, the population of Chicago increased from 2,783,726 in 1990 to 2,896,016 in 2000. Chicago is the center of a
large metropolitan area spreading across three states, from Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the north to Gary, Indiana, in the southeast. The population of the consolidated metropolitan statistical area increased from 8,115,000 in 1980 to 8,240,000 in 1990. It reached 9,157,500 in 2000.
Chicago has a highly diversified economy that has been aided by an extensive transportation and distribution network. It is the nation’s most important rail and trucking center and is the location of one of the busiest airports in the United States, Chicago-O’Hare International Airport. Chicago has several commuter railroad lines that serve the suburbs. In addition, the Chicago Transit Authority operates bus, subway, and EL (elevated train) services in the city.
Chicago contains the headquarters of numerous corporations and is an important wholesale market for grain, machine tools, produce, fish, and flowers. The Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are among the world’s largest commodities markets and have led in the development of futures trading and related concepts. The city has long been an important convention and trade-show center, with numerous hotels and extensive exhibition facilities. The increasing importance of this industry has made it necessary to renovate and enlarge several facilities, including the McCormick Place (built in 1960), a multipurpose facility on Lake Michigan and the largest trade-show facility in North America. The world’s first skyscraper was constructed in Chicago in 1885, spawning the Chicago School of architecture. Among the renowned architects whose buildings have shaped the city’s skyline are Louis Sullivan, William Le Baron Jenney, Daniel H. Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Helmut Jahn. In the central part of the city are several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Sears Tower, 110 stories high. Many of these buildings, including the Sears Tower, have observation decks that are open to the public.
Chicago contains many museums. These include the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum; the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the country’s largest art museums; the Field Museum; and the John G. Shedd Aquarium, the world’s largest, all of which are in the Grant Park area. In Hyde Park are the Oriental Institute Museum, which contains a collection of antiquities from the Middle East; the Du Sable Museum of African-American History; and the Museum of Science and Industry. In Lincoln Park are the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Chicago Historical Society; the latter is known for its material on Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. Also in the city is the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Harold Washington Library Center is the headquarters of the Chicago Public Library. The largest municipal library building in the United States, it is named for the first black mayor of Chicago, who served from 1983 to 1987. The public library, with 79 branches, has a collection of about 6 million books, with representative collections in 35 languages and small collections in more than 300 languages. The Newberry Library is a reference library containing an important collection focused on the humanities, including holdings on Native Americans, the history of printing, and cartography. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1891, is considered one of the finest in the world. The city’s opera company is The Lyric Opera, founded in 1954.
Source: Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2002. ©