Chicago

Chicago refers to the City of Chicago, or, more informally, to the Chicago metropolitan area, colloquially called Chicagoland. Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois, the largest in the Midwest, and, with a population of nearly three million people, it is the third-most populous city in the United States. The Chicago metropolitan area has a population of over 9.4 million in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, making it also the third largest metropolitan area in the United States. Chicago is located along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan and is a major center of transportation, industry, politics, culture, finance, medicine and higher education. Chicago's monikers include the "Windy City," "Chi-Town," and the "City of the Big Shoulders" (from Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago).

Chicago is the financial, business, and cultural capital of the Midwest, and is ranked as an alpha world city by the Loughborough University Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network. The city was founded in 1833 as a town to link the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River System. It soon became a transportation hub of the Northwest Territory, with major connections by steamboats, canals and (by 1855) railroads. By 1890, it was one of the ten most influential world cities.