Skyscrapers in the large city of Chicago to small rural towns with farms can all be found in the state of Illinois. Located in the Midwest United States, the state has become a transportation hub and it’s mixture of industry and farm along with urban and country makes Illinois unique. The capital is Springfield, centrally located in the middle of the state. Illinois is bordered by Wisconsin to the north, Indiana to the east, Iowa & Missouri to the west, and Kentucky to the south. The northeast border of Illinois sits on Lake Michigan, where the city of Chicago is located.

Terrain here is primarily flat and the highest point in the state is actually a skyscraper, The Sears Tower in Chicago at 2,030 feet. The elevation of Chicago is 580 feet and the Sears Tower itself is 1450 feet; from the Sears Tower Skydeck on the 103rd floor, tourists can experience how the building sways on a windy day and see over the great plains of Illinois and Lake Michigan on a clear day.

The Chicago metropolitan area known as Chicagoland extends into Indiana, up to Wisconsin, and well into northwest Illinois. The state is known as the “Land of Lincoln” because the 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, spent most of his life practicing law and living in Springfield.

Climate in Illinois varies because of the length of the state. It is generally warmer in the southern part of Illinois, but in general it is warm during summer and cold in the winter. Northern Illinois and Chicago often gets a lot of snow during the winter because of a phenomenon called lake effect snow.

There are over 60 state parks in the Illinois park system and about the same number of recreational and wildlife areas. The National Park Service of the United States oversees The Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor (near Lockport), The Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, Lincoln Home National Historic Site (in Springfield), The Mormon Pioneer Historic Train, and the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.

Getting to Illinois

With its central location, it is easy to get here by automobile. Several major interstate highways including I-24, I-39, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70, I-72, I-74, I-80, I-88, I-90, and I-94 cross into the state of Illinois.

As a transportation hub, Illinois is home to one of the busiest airports in the world, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). From here you can catch non-stop flights to nearly all of the United States plus Europe, Asia, South America, and even the Indian sub-continent. Midway Airport (MDW) is also in Chicago as a backup to O’Hare and here you can fly non-stop to most major cities of the United States.