About Chicago

Chicago Factoids

237 square miles of land
An estimated 2,695,598 residents
More than 200 theaters
Nearly 200 art galleries
More than 7,300 restaurants
77 community areas containing more than 100 neighborhoods
26 miles of lakefront
15 miles of bathing beaches
36 annual parades
19 miles of lakefront bicycle paths
552 parks
Nearly 40 million people visit Chicago annually.
Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837.
The first mail-order business, Montgomery Ward & Co., was established in 1872.
The world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Company, was built in 1885.
The nation’s first blood bank was established in 1937 by Dr. Bernard Fantus at Cook County Hospital.
The first drive-in bank opened in 1946.
Chicago’s nicknames include: The Windy City, the City of Big Shoulders, the Second City, and The City That Works.
The "Historic Route 66" begins in Chicago at Grant Park on Adams Street in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Chicagoland area contains nearly 10 million people in three states – Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana – and is the 22nd largest metropolitan area in the world.
Chicago is home to eleven Fortune 500 companies, while the rest of the metropolitan area hosts an additional 21 Fortune 500 companies.
McCormick Place, Chicago’s premier convention center, offers the largest amount of exhibition space in North America (2.2 million square feet).
The first Ferris wheel made its debut in Chicago at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Today, Navy Pier is home to a 15-story Ferris wheel, modeled after the original one.
Chicago’s downtown area is known as “The Loop.” The nickname refers to the area encircled by the elevated (‘L’) train tracks.
The game of 16-inch softball, which is played without gloves, was invented in Chicago.
In 1900, Chicago successfully completed a massive and highly innovative engineering project – reversing the flow of the Chicago River so that it emptied into the Mississippi River instead of Lake Michigan. Each year, the Chicago River is dyed green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Chicago was one of the first and largest municipalities to require public art as part of the renovation or construction of municipal buildings, with the passage of the Percentage-for-Arts Ordinance in 1978.
The Chicago Cultural Center is the first free municipal cultural center in the U.S. and home to the world’s largest stained glass Tiffany dome.
When it opened in 1991, the Harold Washington Library Center, with approximately 6.5 million books, was the world’s largest municipal library.
The Lincoln Park Zoo, one of only three major free zoos in the country, is the country’s oldest public zoo with an estimated annual attendance of three million.
The Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 110 stories high.
The Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower)elevators are among the fastest in the world operating as fast as 1,600 feet per minute.
Four states are visible from the Skydeck Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower Skydeck). Indiana, Illinois, Michigan & Wisconsin.
Chicago is home to the world's first Nutella cafe