Articles of category "Illinois"

With a population of more than 130,000, Naperville is one of the largest cities in Illinois and is one of the fastest-growing communities in the country. Located 28 miles west of downtown Chicago, Naperville business owners enjoy easy access to major interstate highways, O'Hare International and Midway airports and passenger and freight railroad systems. Naperville Illinois has interesting facts connected not only with its past but also with the contemporary times. Naperville Illinois is one of the first cities in America to dedicate a memorial to those who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

The state is named for the Illinois, or Illini, a confederation of Native Americans of various tribes who lived Illinois and other sections of the Midwest at the time the first French explorers entered the region. Today Illinois is one of the most productive agricultural and industrial states in the country, and its economic influence now extends far beyond the Midwest. Rural Illinois does not lack physical and agricultural diversity. It has hill lands and a national forest in the south, cotton fields on the fertile alluvial lands in the extreme south, scenic bluffs along the Mississippi, and hillside dairy farms in the northwest. Large prosperous farms specialize in raising grain and livestock on the rich prairie soils.