Illinois (pronounced or "ill-i-NOY") is the 21st U.S. state and is located in the Midwest region of the United States of America. The state is known for its large and diverse population, its balance of rural areas, small industrial cities, vast suburbs and great metropolis, its highly diverse economic base, and its central location that has made it a transportation hub for 150 years. It is this mixture of factory and farm, of urban and rural that makes Illinois a microcosm of the nation.

About 2000 Native American hunters inhabited the area at the time of the American Revolution, and by a small number of French villagers. American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s; they achieved statehood in 1818. Yankees arrived a little later and dominated the north, creating the metropolis of Chicago in the 1830s. The coming of the railroads in the 1850s made highly profitable the rich prairie farmlands in central Illinois, attracting large numbers of immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. Northern Illinois, strongly Republican, provided major support for Illinoisans Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War. By 1900, factories were being rapidly built in the northern cities, along with coal mines in central and southern areas, attracting large numbers of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was a major arsenal in both world wars; large numbers of blacks left the cotton fields of the South to come to Chicago, where they developed a famous jazz culture.

The state is named for the Illinois River which was named by French explorers after the indigenous Illiniwek people, a consortium of Algonquian tribes that thrived in the area. The word Illiniwek means "tribe of superior men."State of Illinois. Illinois Symbols. Accessed on April 20, 2006