What Does "Chicagoland" Mean, And Where Did It Come From?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The origins of “Chicagoland” can be traced back to nearly 100 years ago. Back then, it encompassed an area that went beyond the suburbs.

Transcript

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0:31.8	Hey there, it's Curiosity Fellow Marie Mendoza here.
0:35.7	I'm not a native Chicagoan, and when I first moved here six years
0:39.1	ago, I was struck by a little phrase I saw plastered over some billboards, usually of car dealerships.
0:45.4	You probably heard it before.
0:47.1	Uh-oh, it's the man from Nissan. He's here in Chicago land to me.
0:50.5	Chicago land. Chicago land. The Chicago Land.
0:53.3	Penn line did I know only in Chicago Land. Yep, Chicago Land. When I. Chicago land. The Chicago land. 109 did I, only in Chicago land.
0:55.0	Yep, Chicago Land.
0:57.0	When I first heard it, I was like, wait, what?
1:00.0	This sounds like some mythical place you would read about in a book, or maybe Disneyland's
1:05.0	lesser-known sister, not a whole metropolitan area.
1:08.0	And I'm from New York's tri-state area, which is aptly named. It turns out this has been a
1:13.1	major curiosity for a lot of you over the years. How did Chicago land get to be a widely used
1:18.9	term? There's no Detroit land or Cincinnati land or Phoenix land. I think I heard something either on
1:25.8	the radio or a commercial where they said the Chicagoland area.
1:28.6	And I realize I use that term all the time.
1:30.5	And I think, okay, well, you've got Chicago, the city.
	...

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