Welcome to Chicago, Illinois

There are currently thirteen metropolitan areas that have at least one team in each major sports league. Their principal cities are often said to have the "Grand Slam."Chicago is one of those cities.

Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States. Located on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago is the third-most densely populated major city in the U.S., and anchor to the world's 26th largest metropolitan area with over 9.5 million people across three states.

In 2007, the city attracted 32.8 million domestic visitors and about 1.15 million foreign visitors. 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.

Globally recognized, Chicago has numerous nicknames, which reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best known include: "Chi-town"; "Chi-city"; the "Windy City" with reference to Chicago politicians and residents boasting about their city; "Second City," due to the city generally being the second most prestigious in the nation in terms of culture, entertainment, and finance; and because for much of the twentieth century Chicago's population was the second largest of any city in the United States.

Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metro area, used primarily by copywriters, advertising agencies, and traffic reporters. There is no precise definition for the term "Chicagoland", but it generally means the city and its suburbs together. The Chicago Tribune, which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter, and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these events was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects to the city from New England, for construction of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition.

In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building rose in Chicago, ushering in the skyscraper era. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense. Downtown's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building in the Loop, with others along the lakefront and the Chicago River. Once first on the list of largest buildings in the world and still listed twentieth, the Merchandise Mart (this building has its own zip code) stands near the junction of the north and south river branches.

Chicago is well known for its wealth of public art, including works by such artistic heavyweights as Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Magdalena Abakanowicz that are all to be found outdoors. Several of these have been financed through the B. F. Ferguson fund.

Chicago’s theatre community spawned modern improvisational theatre.[41] Two renowned comedy troupes emerged—The Second City and I.O. (formerly known as ImprovOlympic). Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (on the city's north side), the Goodman Theatre, and the Victory Gardens Theater. Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at theaters such as Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area.

The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago is home to several other modern and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Other live music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music and is the site of an influential hip-hop scene. In the 1980s, the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. The city has also been spawning a critically acclaimed underground metal scene with various bands gaining national attention in the metal and hard rock world[citation needed]. Annual festivals feature various acts such as Lollapalooza, the Intonation Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival.

Tourism

Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is 3,000 ft (910 m) long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Its 150-foot (46 m) tall Ferris wheel is one of the most visited landmarks in the Midwest, attracting about 8 million people annually.Chicago attracted an approximate combined 35 million people in 2007 from around the nation and abroad.Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists.

The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a 38 ft (12 m) Tiffany glass dome. Millennium Park sits on a deck built over a portion of the former Illinois Central Railroad yard. The park includes the reflective Cloud Gate sculpture (known locally as "The Bean"). An outdoor Millennium Park restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain.

The Magnificent Mile hosts numerous, upscale stores, as well as landmarks like the Chicago Water Tower.In 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The Oriental Institute, part of the University of Chicago, has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Museum of Science and Industry.

Polish market in Chicago.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties, all of which reflect the city's ethnic and working class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza, although locally the Chicago-style thin crust is also popular; featuring a thinner than normal crust. There are very few pizzerias that specialize in true Chicago-style deep dish, the most prominent being Gino's East, Pizzeria Uno and Due, Giordano's and Lou Malnati's. The number of "authentic" Chicago pizzerias specializing in the thin crust version is much higher, with many being "Mom and Pop" style shops.

Among the largest chains in Chicago area are Home Run Inn, Rosati's and Aurelio's. The Chicago-style hot dog, typically a Vienna Beef dog loaded with an array of fixings that often includes Chicago's own neon green pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt. Ketchup on a Chicago hot dog is frowned upon. There are two other distinctly Chicago sandwiches, the Italian beef sandwich, which is thinly sliced beef slowly simmered in an au jus served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera, and the Maxwell Street Polish, which is a kielbasa—typically from either the Vienna Beef Company or the Bobak Sausage Company—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard and the optional sport peppers.

The grand tour of Chicago cuisine culminates annually in Grant Park at the Taste of Chicago which runs from the final week of June through Fourth of July weekend.