The Chicago metropolitan area, also known as Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwest. The metropolitan area contains the City of Chicago along with its surrounding suburbs, satellite cities, and hinterland, spanning 13 counties across northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The MSA had a 2020 census population of 9,618,502, and the combined statistical area, which spans 19 counties, had a population of nearly 10 million. The Chicago area is the third-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the fourth-largest in North America (after Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles), and the largest in the Great Lakes megalopolis. Its urban area is the 50th-largest in the world.
According to the 2020 census, Chicagoland's population is approaching 10 million. In recent decades, the metropolitan area has seen a substantial increase of Latin American residents on top of its already large Latino population, and the Asian American population also increased. The metro area has a large number of White, Black, Latino, Asian, and Arab American residents, and also has Native American residents. The Chicago metropolitan area has about 3 percent of the U.S. population.
Chicagoland has one of the world's largest and most diversified economies. With more than six million full and part-time employees, the Chicago metropolitan area is a key factor of the Illinois economy. The state has an annual GDP of over $1 trillion, and the Chicago metropolitan area generated an annual gross regional product (GRP) of approximately $700 billion in 2018. The region is home to more than 400 major corporate headquarters, including 31 in the Fortune 500, such as McDonald's, United, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. With many companies having project engagements in Chicago, the area ranked as the nation's top metropolitan area for corporation relocations and expansions for nine consecutive years, the most consecutive years for any region in the country. This metric however only measures project engagements, not real GDP or job growth, areas in which Chicago has substantially underperformed many other major metropolitan areas throughout the country over the past decade. Numerous high-profile companies have departed the city in recent years, including Fortune 500 firms such as Boeing, Caterpillar, TTX, Citadel Securities and Tyson, primarily due to unfavorable tax and regulatory conditions, as well as concerns related to crime and overall quality of life. According to McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski these factors have significantly hindered the company's ability to recruit talent for corporate roles at its Chicago headquarters.
The Chicago area is home to a number of the nation's leading research universities, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, Loyola University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). The University of Chicago and Northwestern University are consistently ranked as two of the world's best universities.
The Chicago area is a major transportation hub in North America for various modes such as air, bus, road, rail, and marine. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is ranked as one of the busiest airports in the world, being a major hub for American Airlines and United Airlines, while Midway International Airport (MDW) serves as a major operating base for Southwest Airlines. Eight mainline interstate highways and four auxiliary interstates serve the region. Some interstates are toll roads such as those that belong to the Illinois Tollway and the Indiana Toll Road. The Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) coordinates the operation of three transit service boards serving much of the Illinois portion of the Chicagoland area: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Metra commuter rail, and Pace Suburban Bus. One Metra line extends into Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) operates the South Shore Line interurban service between downtown Chicago and the Northwest Indiana portion of the metropolitan area. Chicago Union Station (which also hosts Metra trains) is a major hub for Amtrak passenger trains and the main base for the Amtrak Midwest corridor services. All six Class I freight railroads meet in the Chicago area. The Port of Chicago allows for the passage of maritime shipping between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin.
Contents
Definitions
Chicago Metropolitan statistical area
The Chicago metropolitan statistical area (MSA) was originally designated by the United States Census Bureau in 1950. It comprised the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, along with Lake County in Indiana. As surrounding counties saw an increase in their population densities and the number of their residents employed within Cook County, they met Census criteria to be added to the MSA. The Chicago MSA, now defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL–IN–WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the third-largest MSA by population in the United States. The 2022 census estimate for the population of the MSA was 9,441,957.
The Chicago MSA is further subdivided into four metropolitan divisions. A breakdown of the county constituents and 2021 estimated populations of the four metropolitan divisions of the MSA are as follows:
Combined statistical area
The OMB also defines a slightly larger region as a combined statistical area (CSA). The Chicago–Naperville, IL–IN–WI Combined Statistical Area combines the following core-based statistical areas, listed with their 2021 estimated populations. The combined statistical area as a whole had a population of 9,806,184 as of 2022.
Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL–IN–WI metropolitan statistical area (9,509,934)
Kankakee, IL metropolitan statistical area (106,601)
Kankakee County, Illinois (106,601)
Michigan City–La Porte, IN metropolitan statistical area (112,390)
LaPorte County, Indiana (112,390)
Kenosha, WI metropolitan statistical area
Kenosha County, Wisconsin
Ottawa, IL micropolitan statistical area (147,414)
Bureau County, Illinois (32,883)
LaSalle County, Illinois (108,965)
Putnam County, Illinois (5,566)
United Nations' Chicago urban agglomeration
The Chicago urban agglomeration, according to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report (2023 revision), lists a population of 8,937,000. The term "urban agglomeration" refers to the population contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels. It usually incorporates the population in a city, plus that in the contiguous urban, or built-up area.
Chicagoland
Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area. The term Chicagoland has no official definition, and the region is often considered to include areas beyond the corresponding MSA, as well as portions of the greater CSA.
Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, usually gets credit for placing the term in common use. McCormick's conception of Chicagoland stretched all the way to nearby parts of four states (Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa). The first usage was in the Tribune's July 27, 1926, front page headline, "Chicagoland's Shrines: A Tour of Discoveries", for an article by reporter James O'Donnell Bennett. He stated that Chicagoland comprised everything in a 200-mile (320 km) radius in every direction and reported on many different places in the area. The Tribune was the dominant newspaper in a vast area stretching to the west of the city, and that hinterland was closely tied to the metropolis by rail lines and commercial links.
Today, the Chicago Tribune's usage includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties (Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee), and the two Indiana counties of Lake and Porter. Illinois Department of Tourism literature uses Chicagoland for suburbs in Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties, treating the city separately. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.
In addition, company marketing programs such as Construction Data Company's "Chicago and Vicinity" region and the Chicago Automobile Trade Association's "Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana" advertising campaign are directed at the MSA itself, as well as LaSalle, Winnebago (Rockford), Boone, and Ogle counties in Illinois, in addition to Jasper, Newton, and La Porte counties in Indiana and Kenosha, Racine, and Walworth counties in Wisconsin, and even as far northeast as Berrien County, Michigan. The region is part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis, containing an estimated 55 million people.
Collar counties
The term "collar counties" is a colloquialism for the five counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will) of Illinois that border Chicago's Cook County. After Cook County, they are also the next five most populous counties in the state. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, there is no specifically known origin of the phrase, but it has been commonly used among policy makers, urban planners, and in the media. However, it also notes that as growth has spread beyond these counties, it may have lost some of its usefulness.
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is an Illinois state agency that serves as the federally-mandated metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the Illinois portion of the region. It is responsible for transportation planning, land use planning, infrastructure, and long-term economic development planning for the areas under its jurisdiction within Illinois. The metropolitan planning area (MPA) has a population of over 8 million, which includes the following locations in Illinois:
The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) and the Milwaukee-based Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) serve as the MPOs for the Indiana and Wisconsin portions of the region, respectively. DeKalb County and Kankakee County, although in Illinois, have their own respective MPOs and are not part of CMAP.
Geography and environment
The city of Chicago lies in the Chicago Plain, a flat and broad area characterized by little topographical relief. The few low hills are sand ridges. North of the Chicago Plain, steep bluffs and ravines run alongside Lake Michigan.
Along the southern shore of the Chicago Plain, sand dunes run alongside the lake. The tallest dunes reach up to near 200 feet (61 m) and are found in Indiana Dunes National Park. Surrounding the low plain are bands of moraines in the south and west suburbs. These areas are higher and hillier than the Chicago Plain. A continental divide, separating the Mississippi River watershed from that of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, runs through the Chicago area.
A 2012 survey of the urban trees and forests in the seven county Illinois section of the Chicago area found that 21% of the land is covered by the tree and shrub canopy, made up of about 157,142,000 trees. The five most common tree species are buckthorn, green ash, boxelder, black cherry, and American elm. These resources perform important functions in carbon storage, water recycling, and energy saving.
Demographics
Race and ethnicity
As of 2022, the metropolitan area had a population of 9,442,159. The population density was 1,312.3 per square mile.
The racial makeup was 50.1% Non-Hispanic White, 23.4% were Hispanic, 15.5% were Non-Hispanic African Americans, 7.2% were Asian, 0.1% were Non-Hispanic Native American, 0.4% identified as “some other race,” and 3.2% were non-Hispanic multiracial.
Ancestry
According to 2023 estimates from the American Community Survey, the largest ancestries in the Chicago metro area were Mexican (18.3%), African (17.7%), German (12.6%), Irish (9.9%), Polish (7.8%), Italian (6.2%), English (4.8%), Indian (2.7%), Puerto Rican (2.2%), Filipino (1.7%), Swedish (1.5%), and Chinese (1.5%).
Urban growth
The suburbs, surrounded by easily annexed flat ground, have been expanding at a tremendous rate since the early 1960s. Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, and Naperville are noteworthy for being four of the few boomburbs outside the Sun Belt, West Coast and Mountain States regions, and exurban Kendall County ranked as the fastest-growing county (among counties with a population greater than 10,000) in the United States between 2000 and 2007.
Income
Settlement patterns in the Chicago metropolitan area tend to follow those in the city proper: the northern and northwestern suburbs are generally affluent and upper-middle class, while the southern suburbs (sometimes known as Chicago Southland) have somewhat lower median incomes and a cost of living, with the exception being the southwest suburbs which contain many upper-middle class areas. Another exception to this is the West Side, which has a somewhat lower median income, but the western suburbs contain many affluent and upper-middle class areas. According to the 2000 Census, DuPage County as a whole had the highest median household income of any county in the Midwestern United States, although there are individual cities and towns in other surrounding counties in the metro that have even higher median incomes.
According to 2022 estimates from the U.S. Census, poverty rates of the largest counties from least poverty to most are as follows: McHenry 4.0%, Dupage 6.7%, Will 6.9%, Kane 7.8%, Lake 8.0%, and Cook 13.6%. However, Cook County, which contains luxury high rises and expensive houses in sections of the city and expensive houses along the waterfront in the North Shore area, would also have the highest percentage of expensive homes in the region.
In an in-depth historical analysis, Keating (2004, 2005) examined the origins of 233 settlements that by 1900 had become suburbs or city neighborhoods of the Chicago metropolitan area. The settlements began as farm centers (41%), industrial towns (30%), residential railroad suburbs (15%), and recreational/institutional centers (13%). Although relations between the different settlement types were at times contentious, there also was cooperation in such undertakings as the construction of high schools.
Population
As the Chicago metropolitan area has grown, more counties have been partly or totally assimilated with the taking of each decennial census.
Counties highlighted in gray were not included in the MSA for that census. The CSA totals in blue are the totals of all the counties listed above, regardless of whether they were included in the Chicago Combined Statistical Area at the time.
Principal municipalities
Chicago (2,746,388)
Aurora, Illinois (180,542)
Joliet, Illinois (150,362)
Naperville, Illinois (149,540)
Elgin, Illinois (114,797)
Urban areas within
Within the boundary of the 16-county Chicago Combined Statistical Area lies the Chicago urban area, as well as 26 smaller urban areas. Some of the urban areas below may partially cross into other statistical areas. Only those situated primarily within the Chicago combined statistical area are listed here.
Economy
The Chicago metropolitan area is home to the corporate headquarters of 57 Fortune 1000 companies, including AbbVie Inc., Allstate, Archer Daniels Midland, Exelon, GE Healthcare, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Motorola, United Airlines, Walgreens, and more. The Chicago area also headquarters a wide variety of global financial institutions including Morningstar, Inc. and CNA Financial. Chicago is home to the largest futures exchange in the world, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In March 2008, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced its acquisition of NYMEX Holdings Inc, the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange and Commodity Exchange. CME'S acquisition of NYMEX was completed in August 2008 to form CME Group. Until 2022, the Chicago area was home to corporate headquarters of Boeing, Caterpillar, Citadel LLC, and Tyson Foods.
A key piece of infrastructure for several generations was the Union Stock Yards of Chicago, which from 1865 until 1971 penned and slaughtered millions of cattle and hogs into standardized cuts of beef and pork. This prompted poet Carl Sandburg to describe Chicago as the "Hog Butcher for the World".
The Chicago area, meanwhile, began to produce significant quantities of telecommunications gear, electronics, steel, crude oil derivatives, automobiles, and industrial capital goods.
By the early 2000s, Illinois' economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, logistics, and health care. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois's earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures market.
In 2007, the area ranked first among U.S. metro areas in the number of new and expanded corporate facilities. It ranked third in 2008, behind the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown and Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan areas, and ranked second behind the New York metropolitan area in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal summarized the Chicago area's economy in November 2006 with the comment that "Chicago has survived by repeatedly reinventing itself."
Transportation
Major airports
Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) (located in the adjacent Milwaukee metropolitan area)
Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) (located in the adjacent Rockford metropolitan area)
Gary/Chicago International Airport (GYY)
Ports and harbors
North Point Marina (Winthrop Harbor)
Port of Chicago
Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor
Waukegan Harbor
Wilmette Harbor
Commercial freight
Chicago has been at the center of the United States' railroad network since the 19th century. Almost all Class I railroads serve the area, the most in North America.
The CenterPoint Intermodal Center in Elwood, near Joliet, is considered to be the largest inland port in North America.
Public Transit
The Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) coordinates and supports the operation of three transit service boards serving Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane, and McHenry Counties in Illinois, with one commuter rail line also serving Kenosha County, Wisconsin.
Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) operates the Chicago "L" rapid transit system and numerous bus routes in the City of Chicago and some surrounding suburbs.
Pace (NITA's Suburban Bus Division) operates regular suburban fixed-route bus services, an arterial rapid transit service known as Pulse, express buses on I-55 and I-90, regional vanpool, paratransit, and demand-response services in the Chicagoland region.
Metra (NITA's Commuter Rail Division) operates commuter rail service between Chicago and numerous suburbs:
4 lines serving southern Cook County and Will County
3 lines serving western Cook County, DuPage County, and Kane County
2 lines serving northern Cook County and Lake County
1 line serving northern Cook County, Lake County, and Kenosha County
1 line serving northwestern Cook County and McHenry County
The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) operates the South Shore Line, which provides commuter rail service from downtown Chicago (at Millennium Station) to Northwest Indiana. Since March 2026 it consists of two routes:
Lakeshore Corridor to South Bend Airport via Lake (IN), Porter, LaPorte, and St. Joseph counties
Monon Corridor to Munster/Dyer via Lake County, IN
Passenger Rail
Chicago Union Station serves as the national and Midwest hub for Amtrak, the national passenger rail operator of the United States. The routes that serve Union Station include the Blue Water, Borealis, California Zephyr, Cardinal, City of New Orleans, Empire Builder, Floridian, Hiawatha Service, Illini/Saluki, Illinois Zephyr/Carl Sandburg, Lake Shore Limited, Lincoln Service, Pere Marquette, Southwest Chief, Texas Eagle, and Wolverine. There are also other Amtrak stations in Chicagoland:
Glenview, IL - Hiawatha Service, Borealis, and Empire Builder
Naperville, IL - Illinois Zephyr/Carl Sandburg, California Zephyr, and Southwest Chief
LaGrange, IL - Illinois Zephyr/Carl Sandburg
Summit, IL - Lincoln Service
Joliet, IL - Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle
Homewood, IL - Illini/Saluki and City of New Orleans
Hammond-Whiting, IN - Wolverine
Dyer, IN - Cardinal
Major highways
I-41 runs concurrently with I-94 from the northern terminus of the Tri-State Tollway to Milwaukee.
I-55 is the Adlai Stevenson Expressway.
I-57 is unofficially the "West Leg" of the Dan Ryan Expressway.
I-65 has no name, whether official or unofficial.
I-80 is officially called the Borman Expressway (cosigned with I-94), Kingery Expressway (cosigned with I-94 for 3 miles), Tri-State Tollway (cosigned with I-294 for 4 miles) and is unofficially called the Moline Expressway west of I-294.
I-88 is the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (formerly East-West Tollway)
I-90 is locally known as Jane Addams Tollway (formerly Northwest Tollway), John F. Kennedy Expressway (cosigned with I-94), Dan Ryan Expressway (cosigned with I-94), and Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge.
I-94 is the Tri-State Tollway in Lake County, Edens Spur, Edens Expy, John F. Kennedy Expy (cosigned with I-90), Dan Ryan Expy (cosigned with I-90), Bishop Ford Freeway (formerly Calumet Expressway), Kingery Expy (cosigned with I-80) and Borman Expy (cosigned with I-80).
I-190 is the John F. Kennedy Expressway spur heading into Chicago-O'Hare Int'l Airport.
I-290 is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway.
I-294 is the Tri-State Tollway.
I-355 is the Veterans Memorial Tollway (formerly North-South Tollway).
I-490 is the O'Hare West Bypass, a toll road currently under construction with a scheduled opening date of 2027.
Politics
The Chicagoland metro has long been a Democratic stronghold due to the Democratic strength concentrated in Cook County, more specifically in the city of Chicago and its many diverse suburbs. The Collar counties that border Cook County have historically leaned towards the Republican Party, but in recent election cycles they have increasingly shifted to the left.
McHenry County is the reddest collar county, as it is the only county out of the five collar counties that has continued to routinely elect Republicans statewide, having voted for the Republican candidate for president in the last four out of five United States presidential elections. Dekalb County, which is the westernmost county in the metro, is a Democratic leaning county, especially because of the demographically diverse city of Dekalb being home to NIU. Kankakee County and Grundy County, which are located to the south and southwest of Will County respectively, are the most Republican counties included in metro, particularly due to being more exurban and rural.
Culture
Sports
Listing of the professional sports teams in the Chicago metropolitan area
Major league professional teams:
Major League Baseball (MLB)
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
National Football League (NFL)
Chicago Bears
National Basketball Association (NBA)
Chicago Bulls
National Hockey League (NHL)
Chicago Blackhawks
Major League Soccer (MLS)
Chicago Fire FC
Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
Chicago Sky
National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)
Chicago Stars FC
Other professional teams:
American Association of Professional Baseball (AA)
Chicago Dogs
Kane County Cougars
Gary SouthShore RailCats
American Hockey League (AHL)
Chicago Wolves
Cuisine
Chicago-style hot dog
Chicago-style pizza
Italian beef
Caramel popcorn
Media
The two main newspapers are the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Local television channels broadcasting to the Chicago market include WBBM-TV 2 (CBS), WMAQ-TV 5 (NBC), WLS-TV 7 (ABC), WGN-TV 9 (CW), WTTW 11 (PBS), MeTV 23, WCIU 26 (Ind), WFLD 32 (FOX), WCPX-TV 38 (Ion), WSNS-TV 44 (Telemundo), WPWR-TV 50 (MyNetworkTV), and WJYS-TV 62 (The Way). Radio stations serving the area include: WBBM (AM), WBEZ, WGN (AM), WMBI, WLS (AM), and WSCR.
Education
Elementary and secondary education within the Chicago metropolitan area is provided by dozens of different school districts, of which by far the largest is the Chicago Public Schools with 400,000 students. Numerous private and religious school systems are also found in the region, as well as a growing number of charter schools. Racial inequalities in education in the region remain widespread, often breaking along district boundaries; for instance, educational prospects vary widely for students in the Chicago Public Schools compared to those in some neighboring suburban schools.
Historically, the Chicago metropolitan area has been at the center of a number of national educational movements, from the free-flowing Winnetka Plan to the regimented Taylorism of the Gary Plan. In higher education, University of Chicago founder William Rainey Harper was a leading early advocate of the junior college movement; Joliet Junior College is the nation's oldest continuously operating junior college today. Later U of C president Robert Maynard Hutchins was central to the Great Books movement, and programs of dialogic education arising from that legacy can be found today at the U of C, at Shimer College, and in the City Colleges of Chicago and Oakton College in the Northwest suburbs.
Area codes
From 1947 until 1988, the Illinois portion of the Chicago metro area was served by a single area code, 312, which abutted the 815 area code. In 1988 the 708 area code was introduced and the 312 area code became exclusive to the city of Chicago.
It became common to call suburbanites "708'ers", in reference to their area code.
The 708 area code was partitioned in 1996 into three area codes, serving different portions of the metro area: 630, 708, and 847.
At the same time that the 708 area code was running out of phone numbers, the 312 area code in Chicago was also exhausting its supply of available numbers. As a result, the city of Chicago was divided into two area codes, 312 and 773. Rather than divide the city by a north–south area code, the central business district retained the 312 area code, while the remainder of the city took the new 773 code.
In 2002, the 847 area code was supplemented with the overlay area code 224. In February 2007, the 815 area code (serving outlying portions of the metro area) was supplemented with the overlay area code 779. In October 2007, the overlay area code 331 was implemented to supplement the 630 area with additional numbers.
Plans are in place for overlay codes in the 708, 773, and 312 regions as those area codes become exhausted in the future.
312 Chicago - City (The Loop and central neighborhoods, e.g. the Near North Side)
773 Chicago - City (Everywhere else within the city limits, excluding central area)
872 Chicago - City (overlay for 312 & 773, effective November 7, 2009)
847/224 (North and Northwest Suburbs)
Proposed overlays
464 overlay for 708 (January 21, 2022, rollout)