Chicago metropolitan area


The Chicago metropolitan area, sometimes informally called Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwest. Encompassing, 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 and extends into southeast Wisconsin, 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, 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. 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 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. There have been numerous high-profile companies — including several Fortune 500 firms — that have departed the city in recent years, 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. The University of Chicago and Northwestern University are consistently ranked as two of the world's best universities.
There are many transportation options around the region. Chicagoland has three separate rail networks: the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and the South Shore Line. The CTA operates elevated and subway lines that run primarily in the city, Downtown Chicago, and some suburbs. The CTA operates some of its rail lines 24 hours a day, every day of the year, nonstop, making Chicago one of only three cities in the world to offer 24-hour nonstop rail service everyday throughout their city limits. The Metra commuter rail network runs numerous lines between Downtown Chicago and suburban/satellite cities, with one line stretching to Kenosha, Wisconsin. The interurban South Shore Line runs between Downtown Chicago and the northwest Indiana portion of the metropolitan area. In addition, Amtrak's Union Station in Downtown Chicago is one of its largest hubs, with numerous lines radiating to and from it.
CTA bus routes serve the city proper, with some service into the suburbs. Pace bus routes serve the suburbs, with some service into the city. In addition, numerous CTA bus routes operate 24 hours a day, nonstop.

Definitions

Chicago Metropolitan statistical area

The Chicago metropolitan statistical area 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 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:
Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL–IN–WI Metropolitan Statistical Area
The OMB also defines a slightly larger region as a combined statistical area. 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.
The Chicago urban agglomeration, according to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report, 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. The first usage was in the Tribunes 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 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 Tribunes usage includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties, 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, 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 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

Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning is an Illinois state agency responsible for transportation infrastructure, land use, and long-term economic development planning for the areas under its jurisdiction within Illinois. The planning area has a population of over 8 million, which includes the following locations in Illinois: