Illinois (pronounced /ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ ( listen) IL-i-NOY), the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation.[6] With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and western Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is an important transportation hub; the Port of Chicago connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. Illinois is often viewed as a microcosm of the United States; an Associated Press analysis of 21 demographic factors found Illinois the "most average state", while Peoria has long been a proverbial social and cultural bellwether.[6] With a population near 40,000 between 1300 and 1400 AD, the Mississippian city of Cahokia, in what is now southern Illinois, was the largest city within the future United States, until it was surpassed by New York City between 1790 and 1800. About 2,000 Native American hunters and a small number of French villagers inhabited the Illinois area at the time of the American Revolution.[7] American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s; Illinois achieved statehood in 1818. The future metropolis of Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.[8] Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow made central Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industry in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Its manufacturing made the state a major arsenal in both World wars. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural south to Chicago formed a large and important community that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Approximately 66% of the population of Illinois resides in the northeastern corner of the state, primarily within the city of Chicago and the surrounding area. Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while they were living in Illinois — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico and grew up in Dixon. Lincoln is interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. "Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French missionary/explorers' name for the Illinois people, a name that was spelled endless ways in the early records, such as Ilinioues, "Iliniouetz," "Irini," or "Irinions." Illiniwek is the modern version of the variations of early spellings for the Illinois people's name for themselves, such as "Liniouek," "Aliniouek," "Alimiwec," and "irini8ak." An 1864 history states that "Erinouai," "Erinouek," "Alimouek," "Ilinimouek," "Liniouek," and "Illinoets" are all synonyms of "Illinois," all mean the men.[9] The earliest mention of what has come to be "Illinois" was Paul LeJeune's 1640 account that the Eriniouaj were neighbors of the Winnebago.[10] The first European face-to-face meeting with the Illinois on their territory came in 1674 when Marquette followed a beaten prairie path to a village and asked the people who they were. "They replied that they were Ilinois."[11] Father Jacques Marquette, the great Jesuit missionary and explorer, made this oft-quoted observation about that name: When one speaks the word “Ilinois,” it is as if one said, in their language, “the men". “As if the other Savages were looked upon by them merely as animals".[12] In 1697 Father Louis Hennepin, another missionary, offered this observation: The etymology of this word Illinois comes, as we have said, from the term Illini, which, in the language of that Nation. signifies a man finished or complete.[13] In the same volume he began a chapter about "...the lake named by the Savages Illinoüack & by us Illinois" with these words: The Lake of the Illinois signifies in the language of these Barbarians, the Lake of the Men. The word Illinois signifies a grown man, who is in the prime of his age and vigor.[14] An 1871 study described the Illinois people's name for themselves as evidence that the "conviction of personal and tribal excellence stamps itself on every savage language."[15] This entire body of historical contemporary documentation is dismissed by at least one Miami-language theoretical linguist. David Costa maintains that theoretical analysis of modernized, Anglicized spellings reveals that the Illinois component of the Miami-Illinois language is merely folklore and urban legend "which has even crept into anthropological and historical usage," that "neither ‘Ilinioüek’, ‘Illiniwek’, nor, least of all, ‘Illini’ are legitimate names for the Illinois," that the Illinois were not among the people who considered speaking the Illinois language speaking "in the regular way," and that, in short, “virtually all analyses of the name ‘Illinois’ offered over the past 300 years are in fact wrong.”[16] In 2000 Costa formulated a "reconstructed or hypothetical phonemicized form," Inoka.[17] He came to treat this hypothetical construct as a standard vernacular expression, and developed the point of view that it was this expression that the Illinois people used to refer to themselves rather than any of the "unworkable" urban legend variations of "Illinois" or "Illiniwek." However, a search of the early missionary/explorer records before 1800 for "Inoka" or "*Inoka" does not produce any hits because, of course, the expression first appeared in print in 2000.[18] A search for "Illinois," on the other hand, documents that the name was used by the Illinois people to refer to themselves and by others to refer to the Illinois in hundreds of pages in dozens of volumes published before 1800.[19] [20] The state is named for the French adaptation of an Algonquian language (perhaps Miami) word apparently meaning "s/he speaks normally" (Miami ilenweewa,[21][22] Proto-Algonquian *elen-, "ordinary" and -we·, "to speak").[23] Alternately, the name is often associated with the indigenous Illiniwek people, a consortium of Algonquian-language tribes that once thrived in the area. The name Illiniwek is frequently (incorrectly) said to mean "tribe of superior men";[24] or "men". Both etymologies are unworkable. Indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years. The Koster site has been excavated and demonstrated 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. At its peak, the city had 30,000 to 40,000 people, a population not reached again north of Mexico until between 1790 and 1800 in New York. They built more than 100 mounds and a Woodhenge in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance among several tribes. There were about 25,000 Illinois Indians in 1700, but systematic attacks and warfare by the Iroquois reduced their numbers by 90%.[25] Gradually, members of the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes came in from the east and north.[26] In the American Revolution, the Illinois and Potawatomi supported the American colonists' cause. French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. In 1680, other French explorers constructed a fort at the site of present day Peoria, in 1682 a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. As a result of this French exploration, Illinois was part of the French empire until 1763, when it passed to the British. The small French settlements continued; a few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but there were no British or American settlers. In 1778 George Rogers Clark claimed the Illinois Country for Virginia. The area was ceded by Virginia to the new United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory.[27] The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia. In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The new state debated slavery, finally rejecting it, as settlers poured into southern Illinois from Kentucky. Due to the efforts of Nathaniel Pope, the delegate from Illinois, Congress shifted the northern border 41 miles (66 km) north to 42° 30' north, which added 8,500 square miles (22,000 km2) to the state, including Chicago, Galena and the lead mining region. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, but in 1819 was moved to Vandalia. In 1832 the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and current day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo Indian tribes. The Indians withdrew to Iowa; when they attempted to return, they were defeated by U.S. militia and forced back to Iowa. The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north and this may have contributed to its name: "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.[28] By 1839, the Mormon utopian city of Nauvoo, located on the Mississippi River, was created, settled, and flourished. In 1844 the Mormon leader Joseph Smith was murdered in the Carthage jail. After close to six years of rapid development, the Mormon city of Nauvoo, which rivaled Chicago as Illinois' largest city, saw a rapid decline after the Mormons left Illinois in 1846 for the West in a mass exodus.