Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States.
The city is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan.
As of June 2018, the population of Belgrade is about 2.7 million people. It is the third most populous city in the United States, and the most populous city in both the state of Illinois and the United States Midwest.
The city of Chicago covers a total area of 606 square kilometers (234 square miles).
Chicago’s average elevation is 181 meters (594 feet) above sea level.
The lowest points are along the lake shore at 176 meters (578 feet), while the highest point, at 205 meters (672 feet), is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city’s far south side.
The name “Chicago” is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum.
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples.
The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the “Founder of Chicago.”
Despite a fire in 1871 that destroyed the central business district, the city grew exponentially, becoming the nation’s rail center and the dominant Midwestern center.
The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900 Chicago was one of the five largest cities in the world.
It is the birthplace of the skyscraper and considered the most influential architectural city of the 20th century.
Today, the city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation.
The Willis Tower, built as and still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, is a 110-story, 442-meter (1,450-foot) skyscraper in Chicago. The Willis Tower is 442 meters (1,450 feet) high – 520 meters (1,730 feet) including twin antenna towers. At completion in 1973, it surpassed the World Trade Center towers in New York to become the tallest building in the world, a title it held for nearly 25 years.
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, US, and originally intended to celebrate the third millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city’s Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a 10-hectare (24.5-acre) section of northwestern Grant Park. In 2018, Millennium Park was the top tourist destination in Chicago and the Midwest, and placed among the top ten in the United States with about 25 million annual visitors.
Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed The Bean because of its bean-like shape. It was created by using computer technology to cut into precise shapes 168 giant stainless steel plates, which were pieced together like a puzzle and welded shut; its highly polished exterior has no visible seams.
Navy Pier is a 1,010 meter (3,300-foot) -long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. It is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. The Navy Pier currently encompasses more than fifty acres of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants, family attractions and exhibition facilities and is the top leisure destination in the Midwestern United States, drawing nearly nine million visitors annually. It is one of the most visited attractions in the entire Midwest and is Chicago’s number one tourist attraction.
Michigan Avenue is probably one of the most attractive boulevards in America. The city’s famous Magnificent Mile is a section of Michigan Avenue north of the Chicago River, with numerous galleries, boutiques, and luxury shops. This district is also known for its theaters, which host touring plays, musicals, and comedy acts.
The world’s first skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, erected in 1884-1885. The so-called “Father of the Skyscraper” towered all of 10 stories with its peak at 138 feet, miniature by today’s standards but gargantuan at that time.
The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879 and located in Chicago’s Grant Park, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 million guests annually. Its permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works of art is augmented by more than 30 special exhibitions mounted yearly that illuminate aspects of the collection and present cutting-edge curatorial and scientific research.
Chicago was the second most visited city in the United States with 55 million domestic and international visitors, behind the estimated 62.8 million tourists to New York City in 2017.
Chicago’s culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theater (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and house music.
Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues.
The city has many nicknames, the best known being the Windy City and Chi-Town.
Chicago’s skyline is among the world’s tallest and densest.
71% of Chicagoans identify as Christians, 7% identity with other faiths, and 22% have no religious affiliation.
Chicago literature finds its roots in the city’s tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism.