After a series of wars with the local American Natives, Chicago was founded in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and incorporated as a city in 1837. The city became a major transportation and telecommunications hub in North America. O'Hare International is the second busiest airport in the world. Chicago is also a major business, financial, and industrial center. The city is a stronghold of the Democratic Party, and Chicago has been home to influential politicians, including the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama.
As of 2007, the city's attractions, business, and commerce bring 44.2 million visitors annually. Making use of its abundant resources, Chicago has a heritage for hosting major international, national, regional, and local events that include commerce, culture, entertainment, politics, and sports. On June 4, 2008, Chicago was chosen as one of the final four world city candidates to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and is the only American city on the list.
Globally recognized, Chicago has numerous nicknames. These soubriquets reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best known of these are: the "Windy City" with original reference to Chicagoans' bluster about their city and lately for the climate of the city due to it bordering on a lake; "Chi-Town" ; " Second City", due to second ranking in many areas as well as Chicago's ongoing intention to be number one; and the "City of the Big Shoulders", referring to its numerous skyscrapers, which were first developed in Chicago.
During its first century as a city, Chicago grew at a rate that ranked among the fastest growing in the world. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within fifty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population had tripled to over 3 million.
As of the 2000 census, there were 2,896,016 people, 1,061,928 households, and 632,909 families residing within Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. The population density of the city itself was 12,750.3 people per square mile (4,923.0/km²), making it one of the nation's most densely populated cities. There were 1,152,868 housing units at an average density of 5,075.8 per square mile (1,959.8/km²). Of the 1,061,928 households, 28.9% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.1% were married couples living together, 18.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.4% were non-families. The median income for a household in the city was $38,625, and the median income for a family was $46,748. Males had a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. Below the poverty line are 19.6% of the population and 16.6% of the families.
At the 2007 U.S. Census estimates, Chicago's population was: 38.9% White (30.9% non-Hispanic-White), 35.6% Black or African American, 0.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 5.3% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 21.3% some other race and 1.6% two or more races. 28.1% of the total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
The main ethnic groups in Chicago are African American, Irish, German, Italian, Mexican, English, Bulgarian, Greek, Chinese, Lithuanian, Polish, Bosnian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Puerto Rican. Poles in Chicago constitute the largest Polish population outside of the Polish capital of Warsaw. The Chicago Metropolitan area is also a major center for those of Indian ancestry.
Because of Chicago's large multi-ethnic population, a wide variety of faiths are practiced. Various Christian denominations such as diverse Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches are found throughout the area along with adherents of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Bahá'í, and others.
Chicago is the major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore. Additionally, it is the only city in North America in which six Class I railroads meet. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). About one-third of the country's freight trains pass through the city, making it a major national bottleneck. Announced in 2003, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) initiative is using about $1.5B in private railroad, state, local, and federal funding to improve rail infrastructure in the region to reduce freight rail congestion by about one third. This is also expected to have a positive impact on passenger rail and road congestion, as well as create new greenspace.
Chicago is the largest hub of passenger rail service in the nation. Many Amtrak long distance services originate from Union Station. Such services terminate in New York, Seattle, Portland, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Washington, D.C. Amtrak also provides a number of short-haul services throughout Illinois and toward nearby Milwaukee, Indianapolis Saint Louis, and Detroit.
Nine interstate highways run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with four of them named after former U.S. Presidents. Traffic reports tend to use the names rather than interstate numbers.
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the city of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway Airport and O'Hare Airport. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24 hour service which makes Chicago one of the few cities in the world (and one of only two American cities) to offer rail service every day of the year for 24 hours around the clock. A new subway/elevated line, the Circle Line, is also in the planning stages by the CTA. Metra operates commuter rail service in Chicago and its suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares the railway with the South Shore Line's NICTD Northern Indiana Commuter Rail Service, providing commuter service between South Bend and Chicago. Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. Bicycles are permitted on all CTA and Metra trains during non-rush hours and on all buses 24 hours.
Chicago offers a wide array of bicycle transportation facilities, such as miles of on-street bike lanes, 10,000 bike racks, and a state-of-the-art central bicycle commuter station in Millennium Park. The city has a 100-mile (160 km) on-street bicycle lane network that is maintained by the Chicago Department of Transportation Bike Program and the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. In addition, trails dedicated to bikes only are built throughout the city.
Chicago is served by Midway International Airport on the south side and O'Hare International Airport, the world's second busiest airport, on the far northwest side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic (due to government enforced flight caps). Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport, located in nearby Gary, Indiana, serves as the third Chicago area airport. Chicago Rockford International Airport, formerly Greater Rockford Airport, serves as a regional base for United Parcel Service cargo flights, some passenger flights, and occasionally as a reliever to O'Hare, usually in times of bad weather. Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's second-largest airline by revenue-passenger-kilometers and the city is the second largest hub for American Airlines. Midway airport serves as a major 'focus city' for Southwest Airlines, the world's largest low-cost airline.
A small airport, Meigs Field, was located on the Lake Michigan waterfront adjacent to Grant Park and downtown. There were long-term scheduled flights to Springfield as well as some service to other cities. At 1:30 a.m. on March 31, 2003, the airport runways were unexpectedly destroyed by order of the Mayor, who had sought closure of the airport and development of a nature preserve and bandshell. This resulted in a fine to the city by the Federal Aviation Administration for closure of the airport without sufficient notice, but the airport was eventually demolished.
Chicago is mandating that its entire fleet of taxicabs go green by January 1, 2014.
Using only 3% of the total available bandwidth capacity and 13% of the available fiber pairs, Chicago area data centers move data for local, area, regional and international networks.
Chicago is home to the Illinois Medical District, on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the largest trauma-center in the city.
The University of Chicago operates the University of Chicago Medical Center, which was ranked the fourteenth best hospital in the country by U.S. News & World Report. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.
The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (2600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana-Champaign). Chicago is also home to other nationally recognized medical schools including Rush Medical College, the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University. In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.
The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, American Dietetic Association, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Hospital Association, and Blue Cross Blue Shield are all based in Chicago.
Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city started the installation of wind turbines on government buildings with the aim to promote the use of renewable energy.
Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert certain refuse from landfills. In the fall of 2007 the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling similar to that of other cities due to low participation rates in the blue bag program. After completion of the pilot the city will determine whether to roll it out to all wards.
Chicago has twenty-seven sister cities: Many of them, like Chicago, are or were the second city of their country, have a very similar-sized population, or are the main city of a country that has sent many immigrants to Chicago over the years.