Please contact us to speak with a Chicago divorce attorney. The City of Chicago, on Lake Michigan in Illinois, is one of the largest cities in the United States. As of the 2017 census-estimated population of 2,716,450, Chicago is the third most populous city in the United States after New York and Los Angeles, and the most populous city in both the state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States. It is the county seat of Cook County. The Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as "Chicagoland", has nearly 10 million people and is the third-largest in the United States and fourth largest in North America. The city is the birthplace of the skyscraper, and considered the most influential architectural city of the 20th century. Chicago saw the creation of the first standardized futures contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade; today its successor has evolved into the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures.

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Chicago was the second most visited city in the United States with 55 million domestic and international visitors, behind the estimated 62.8 million tourists to New York City in 2017.[19] The city ranked first place in the 2018 Time OutCity Life Index, a global quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theater (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel,and house music. There are many colleges and universities in the Chicago area, of which the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities.