Geography

Chicago

Largest city in Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States.

Chicago (Population)

Approximately 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called 'Chicagoland', is the third-largest in the United States, after New York City and Los Angeles.

San Fransisco

San Francisco (/ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the leading financial and cultural center of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The only consolidated city-county in California,[10] it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km2)[11] on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km2). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City.[12] San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 14th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The city is also the financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area, with a population of 7.4 million. San Francisco (Spanish for "Saint Francis") was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away.[13] The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000,[14] and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire,[15] San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater.[16] After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States. Today, San Francisco is one of the top tourist destinations in the world,[17] ranking 35th out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide,[18] and is renowned for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and its Chinatown. The city is also a primary banking and finance center, and more than 30 international financial institutions are based there,[19] helping to make San Francisco rank 18th in the world's top producing cities, and 12th place in the top twenty global financial centers.[20] The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC.[21] The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people resided in several small villages when a Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay.[22] Seven years later, on March 28, 1776, the Spanish established the Presidio of San Francisco, followed by a mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores). Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead,[23] near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year,[24] and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.[25] Portsmouth Square in 1851 The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow,[26] prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia,[27] raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.[14] The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor.[28] California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth.[29] With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling.[30] Entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Early winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. Development of the Port of San Francisco and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the Eastern U.S. rail system via the newly completed Pacific Railroad (the construction of which the city had only reluctantly helped support[31]) helped make the Bay Area a center for trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. In 1870, Asians made up 8% of the population.[32] The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast.[33] By 1890, San Francisco's population approached 300,000, making it the eighth largest city in the U.S. at the time. At the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.[34] The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900-1904.[35] "Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." -Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire[36] At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burned out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks.[37] More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core.[15] Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands.[38] More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless.[39] Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay. The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed.[40] Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.[41] In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed.[42] Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939-40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it. During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations.[16] The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the UN was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan. The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II. Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition.[43] Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America.[44][45] From 1950 to 1980, the city lost over 10 percent of its population. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s.[46] Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love.[47] In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.[48] Bank of America completed 555 California Street in 1969 and the Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972,[49] igniting a wave of "Manhattanization" that lasted until the late 1980s, a period which saw extensive high-rise development downtown.[50] The 1980s also saw a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people in the city, an issue that remains today, despite many attempts to address it.[51] The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified.[52] Demand for new housing and office space ignited a second wave of high-rise development, this time South of Market.[53] By 2000, the city's population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded and their employees left. Yet high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy with the social media boom fueling growth in the second decade of the new century.[54] [edit]Geography The San Francisco Peninsula San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islands—Alcatraz, Treasure Island and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, 27 miles (43 km) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly 232 square miles (600 km2). Cars navigate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill. San Francisco is famous for its hills. There are more than 50 hills within city limits.[55] Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill. Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is 925 feet (282 m) high and is capped with a 103-foot (31 m) tall cross built in 1934.[56] Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower. The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction.[57] However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.[58] San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.[59] [edit]Climate San Francisco Climate chart (explanation) J F M A M J J A S O N D 4.5 5846 4.5 6148 3.3 6349 1.5 6450 0.7 6652 0.2 6853 0 6855 0.1 6956 0.2 7156 1.1 7054 3.2 6451 4.6 5847 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation totals in inches [show]Metric conversion A popular quote incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."[60][61] San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate[62] of California's coast, "generally characterized by moist mild winters and dry summers."[63] Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean, which moderates temperature swings and produces a remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Fog is a regular feature of San Francisco summers. Among major U.S. cities, San Francisco has the coldest daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for June, July and August.[64] During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low pressure area that draws winds from the North Pacific High through the Golden Gate, which creates the city's characteristic cool winds and fog.[65] The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods and during the late summer and early fall, which is the warmest time of the year. Because of its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and sometimes very cold and windy conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year. Temperatures exceed 75 °F (24 °C) on average only 28 days a year.[66] The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of 64-71 °F (18-22 °C) and lows of 51-56 °F (11-13 °C). The rainy period of November to April is slightly cooler, with high temperatures of 58-64 °F (14-18 °C) and lows of 46-51 °F (8-11 °C). On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages 20.4 inches (518.16 mm).[66] Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976.[67] The highest recorded temperature at the official National Weather Service office was 103 °F (39 °C) on July 17, 1988, and June 14, 2000. The lowest recorded temperature was 27 °F (−3 °C) on December 11, 1932.[68] The U.S. National Weather Service provides a helpful visual aid[69] graphing the information in the table below to display visually by month the annual typical temperatures, the past year's temperatures, and record temperatures. [hide]Climate data for San Francisco (downtown), 1981-2010 normals Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 79 (26) 81 (27) 86 (30) 94 (34) 101 (38) 103 (39) 103 (39) 98 (37) 101 (38) 102 (39) 86 (30) 76 (24) 103 (39) Average high °F (°C) 57.9 (14.4) 61.2 (16.2) 62.9 (17.2) 64.3 (17.9) 65.6 (18.7) 67.9 (19.9) 68.2 (20.1) 69.4 (20.8) 71.3 (21.8) 70.4 (21.3) 64.2 (17.9) 58.3 (14.6) 65.13 (18.41) Average low °F (°C) 46.2 (7.9) 48.1 (8.9) 49.1 (9.5) 49.9 (9.9) 51.6 (10.9) 53.3 (11.8) 54.6 (12.6) 55.6 (13.1) 55.7 (13.2) 54.3 (12.4) 50.7 (10.4) 46.7 (8.2) 51.32 (10.73) Record low °F (°C) 29 (−2) 31 (−1) 33 (1) 40 (4) 42 (6) 46 (8) 47 (8) 46 (8) 47 (8) 43 (6) 38 (3) 27 (−3) 27 (−3) Precipitation inches (mm) 4.50 (114.3) 4.45 (113) 3.25 (82.6) 1.46 (37.1) .70 (18) .16 (4.1) 0 (0) .06 (1.5) .21 (5.3) 1.12 (28.4) 3.16 (80.3) 4.56 (115.8) 23.63 (600.2) Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 11.7 11.1 11.0 6.5 3.8 1.5 .3 1.0 1.7 3.9 8.9 11.6 73 Mean monthly sunshine hours 185.9 207.7 269.1 309.3 325.1 311.4 313.3 287.4 271.4 247.1 173.4 160.6 3,061.7 Source: NOAA [70][71] [edit]Cityscape San Francisco just before sunset from Twin Peaks. San Francisco Cityscape from Treasure Island. [edit]Neighborhoods San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America. Main article: Neighborhoods in San Francisco See also: List of tallest buildings in San Francisco The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to the waterfront tourist attractions of Fisherman's Wharf, and Pier 39 that feature Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry in many of the restaurants there. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy and the former epicenter of the Beat Generation, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Between Russian Hill and North Beach is San Francisco's Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America.[72][73][74][75] In the south-east quadrant of the city is the Mission District which was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate.[76] In recent years, gentrification has changed the demographics of parts of the Mission from Latino, to twenty-something professionals living the hipster lifestyle. Noe Valley to the southwest and Bernal Heights to the south are both increasingly popular among young families with children. West of the Mission, the area historically known as Eureka Valley, now popularly called the Castro, was once a working-class Scandinavian and Irish area. It has become North America's first and best known gay village, and is now the center of gay life in the city.[77] The city's Japantown district, once the largest Japantown in North America, suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed a

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International hub for finance, commerce, industry, telecommunications, and transportation, with O'Hare International Airport being the second-busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements.

Chicago

Listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world in the 2012 Global Cities Index.

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The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, translated as "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, Allium tricoccum, were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition. Manufacturing and retail sectors became dominant among Midwestern cities, influencing the American economy, particularly in meatpacking, with the advent of the refrigerated rail car and the regional centrality of the city's Union Stock Yards. Artist's rendering of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire broke out, destroying an area of about 4 miles long and 1 mile wide, a large section of the city at the time. In the 19th century, Chicago became the nation's railroad center, a title it still holds. In 1883, the standardized system of North American Time Zones was adopted by the general time convention of railway managers in Chicago. This gave the continent its uniform system for telling time. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. In 1924, Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization, the Society for Human Rights. This organization produced the first American publication for gays, Friendship and Freedom. The 1920s also saw a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted blacks from the South. Between 1910 and 1930, the black population of Chicago dramatically increased from 44,103 to 233,903. Arriving in the hundreds of thousands during the Great Migration, the newcomers had an immense cultural impact. It was during this wave that Chicago became a center for jazz, with King Oliver leading the way. On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945. Downtown and the North Side with beaches lining the waterfront Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in Chicago Metropolitan Area situated in the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. Chicago rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside huge freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers— the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side - flow entirely or partially through Chicago. Chicago is a world port city as the St Lawrence Seaway connects Lake Michigan with the Atlantic Ocean. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which runs to the west of the City, connects the Chicago River with the Mississippi River, the fourth-longest river in the world. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect, moderating Chicago's climate; making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer. When Chicago was founded in 1833, most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas, is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography The Chicago Tribune Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense. The United States' two tallest towers are both located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower, and the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere), and Trump International Hotel and Tower. the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Unlike many Midwestern and East Coast cities, Chicago tends to have wider streets. A positive effect of this is that it alleviates the feeling of being engulfed by the city's large skyscrapers. Most of the city's residential streets also tend to have a wide patch of grass and/or trees located between the street and the sidewalk itself. This has the effect of keeping pedestrians walking on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other famous streets include North Michigan Avenue, North State Street, Clark, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways. [edit]Monuments and public art This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (August 2012) Chicago is well known for its wealth of public art, including works by such artistic heavyweights as Chagall, Picasso, Miro and Abakanowicz that are all to be found outdoors. City sculptures additionally honor the many people and topics reflecting the rich history of Chicago. There are monuments to: Tadeusz Kościuszko by Kazimierz Chodzinski Nicholas Copernicus by Bertel Thorvaldsen Karel Havlíček Borovský by Joseph Strachovsky Pope John Paul II, several different monuments (including by Czesław Dźwigaj) Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk by Albin Polasek Irv Kupcinet by Preston Jackson Abraham Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens The Heald Square Monument featuring George Washington, Haym Salomon, and Robert Morris by Lorado Taft, (completed by Leonard Crunelle) Christopher Columbus by Carl Brioschi General John A. Logan by Augustus Saint Gaudens Harry Caray by Omri Amrany and Lou Cella Jack Brickhouse by Jerry McKenna A memorial to the Haymarket affair by Mary Brogger A memorial to the Great Northern Migration by Alison Saar There are also preliminary plans to erect a 1:1-scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's Art Nouveau statue of Frederic Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront[49] in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frederic Chopin's birth. [edit]Parks Main article: Parks of Chicago Portage Park on the Northwest Side and Washington Square Park on the Near North Side. When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which translates into English as "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of 552 parks with over 7,300 acres (3,000 ha) of municipal parkland. There are 33 sand Chicago beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons, and 10 bird and wildlife gardens.[50] Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers 1,200 acres (490 ha) and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it second only to Central Park in New York City in number of visitors.[51] With berths for more than 5,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system; even larger than systems in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, or Miami. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park in a section of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop. The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's periphery, home to both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. [edit]Layout See also: Community areas in Chicago Community areas of the City of Chicago Chicago has four main sections: Downtown (which contains the Loop), the North Side, the South Side, and the West Side. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white strips. These sections can further be informally subdivided or grouped, for example as shown on the map (right). Further sectional references are the Northwest side and the Southwest side. In the late 1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 neighborhoods. The central commercial area often is portrayed, as in the map at right, to include parts of Near North Side and Near South Side, as well as the Loop. The North Side is the most densely populated residential section of the city and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains the University of Chicago and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago. Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plat. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and 16 in the other direction. The grid's regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Indian trails, also cross the city. Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed. [edit]Culture and contemporary life Further information: Culture of Chicago, List of people from Chicago, and Visual arts of Chicago A Chicago jazz club The city's waterfront allure and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over one-third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods (from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south). The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican villages, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and La Villita along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; "Greektown", along South Halsted St, immediately west of downtown; "Little Italy", along Taylor St; "Chinatown"; "Polish Patches"; "Little Seoul", around Lawrence Avenue; a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants along Argyle Avenue near Broadway, and Indian/Pakistani along Devon Avenue. Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, and commercial institutions and home to Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions (for example, CBOT, Chicago Fed) are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block square of city streets that are encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches. The North Side is the most densely populated section of the city outside of downtown and many high-rises line this side of the city along the lakefront. Lincoln Park is a 1,200-acre (490 ha) park stretching for 5.5 mi (8.9 km) along the waterfront and containing the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North neighborhood features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. As a Polonia center, due to the city's having a very large Polish population, Chicago celebrates every Labor Day weekend at the Taste of Polonia Festival in the Jefferson Park area.[52] The Chicago Cubs play in the North Side's Lakeview neighborhood, in the Wrigleyville district. Lakeview is also home to Boystown, which, along with Andersonville, are the best known LGBT neighborhoods. The South Side is home to the University of Chicago (UC), ranked one of the world's top ten universities; and the Museum of Science and Industry. Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is home of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the UC. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Day parade. The American automaker Ford Motor Company has an assembly plant located on the South Side, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are here. The Chicago White Sox play in the South Side's Armour Square neighborhood. The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any US city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Puerto Rican Day Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and television production company of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios. The Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks play on Madison Street. [edit]Entertainment, the arts, and performing arts See also: Theatre in Chicago The Chicago Theatre Chicago's theatre community spawned modern improvisational theater. 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 Broadway In Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Broadway In Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, Broadway In Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway In Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at 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. Classical music offerings include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world,[53] which performs at Symphony Center. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. A new and interesting addition to the Chicago classical music scene is also the Renovo String Orchestra of Chicago. [54] In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Park, located 25 miles (40 km) north of Chicago, is also a favorite destination for many Chicagoans, with performances occasionally given in Chicago locations such as the Harris Theater. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956,[55] and presents operas in Lithuanian. 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. Annual festivals feature various acts such as Lollapalooza and Pitchfork Music Festival. Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Chicago is home to a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, Miró's Chicago, Flamingo and Flying Dragon by Alexander Calder, Monument with Standing Beast by Jean Dubuffet, Batcolumn by Claes Oldenburg, Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa, and the Four Seasons mosaic by Marc Chagall. [edit]Tourism Main article: Tourism in Chicago View of Navy Pier from the 23rd floor of Lake Point Tower The Magnificent Mile hosts numerous upscale stores, as well as landmarks like the Chicago Water Tower In 2008, Chicago attracted 32.4 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.7 million domestic business travelers and 1.3 million overseas visitors.[9] These visitors contributed more than US$11.8 billion to Chicago's economy.[9] 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. A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the fourth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.[56] 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. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, there is the reflective Cloud Gate sculpture. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque. 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.[57] Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel. On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: 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 University of Chicago Oriental Institute 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 Natur

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fourth-largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world, just behind Tokyo, the New York City metropolitan area, and Greater Los Angeles, and ahead of London and Paris. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.

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nicknames, which reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best known include: "Chi-town", "Windy City," "Second City," "Hog Butcher for the World" and the "City of Big Shoulders."