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Nearly everything in ILLINOIS revolves around Chicago , the largest and most exciting of the Great Lakes cities. At the state's northeastern corner, on the shores of Lake Michigan , Chicago has a skyline to rival any city's, plus a gamut of top-rated museums, restaurants and cafés, and innumerable bars and nightclubs paying homage to the city's strong jazz and blues heritage. Seventy-five percent of the state's twelve million population live within commuting distance of Chicago's energetic center, which controls the bulk of the state economy - Illinois is the third largest agricultural producer in the US. The sole exception to the endless flat prairies elsewhere is far to the south, where the forested Shawnee Hills rise between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

The contrast between the quiet rural hinterlands and the buzzing urban center could hardly be greater. That said, Illinois does hold a few places to head for, though, apart from a couple of mildly exciting college towns, most are of historic rather than current interest. First explored and settled by the French, in 1763 the area that's now Illinois was sold to the English. Granted statehood in 1818, Illinois remained a distant frontier until the mid-1830s when, after a series of uprisings, the native Sauk were subjugated and settlers began to arrive in sizable numbers. Among these were the first followers of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, who established a large colony along the Mississippi at Nauvoo. The Mormons met with suspicion and persecution and, after Smith was murdered by a lynch mob in 1844, fled west to Utah.

Other early immigrants included the young Abraham Lincoln , who practiced law from 1837 onward in Springfield , the state capital and home of a wide range of Lincolniana, including his restored home, his law offices and vari ous other period buildings and artifacts, as well as his monumental tomb. Indeed, Illinois' self-proclaimed nickname - emblazoned on its car license plates - is "Land of Lincoln," and many other central Illinois towns claim important roles in the making of the sixteenth US president.

Because Chicago is the site of O'Hare Airport (the world's busiest), as well as the hub of the national Amtrak train network, you're likely at least to pass through it. If you plan to spend time in the rest of Illinois, Amtrak, numerous commuter railroads and, to a lesser extent, Greyhound, make getting around on public transportation feasible, and cycling is generally easy on these endless flat plains.

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