Illinois

Illinois is an American State in the United States as large as England and Wales. It has the Mississippi for its western, the Ohio for its southern boundary, with Wisconsin and Lake Michigan in the North and Indiana on the East. It is seventeenth in area and is nicknamed "The Prairie State". The land is level, well watered, and extremely fertile. It has a climate subject to extremes, but, except in the swamps, healthy. It produces enormous quantities of wheat, besides other cereals, of tobacco and temperate fruits. Flour-milling, pork-packing, and distilling are the chief industries. The most extensive coal-deposits in America are in this State. With navigable rivers on its borders, and traversing it Lake Michigan, a great canal, and the largest railway system in the Union, it is admirably situated for commercial development. Originally acquired by Britain from the French, who entered it from Canada. It was ceded to the Americans in 1783, and admitted to the Union 1818. Education is compulsory here, and the state has a large and wealthy scientific and agricultural university at Urbana. Springfield is the capital, but Chicago is the largest city.

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