芝加哥还是美国中部的高等教育中心。芝加哥大学被誉为“诺贝尔奖”获得者的摇篮，曾先后培育出诺贝尔奖获得者３０多人。西郊的阿岗国家研究院、贝尔实验室、费米实验室的科研成就在全美以至世界都令人瞩目，有相当数目的华裔学者、工程技术人员在这些科研院室任职。
曾是美国“工业之母”的芝加哥，近年来涌现出成片的高科技走廊，取代了正在消亡的夕阳工业，现有“美国硅草原”之称。１９２８年建于该市的摩托罗拉公司闻名全球，是世界上提供无线电通讯、半导体器件、高级电子系统和设施的主要厂商之一。
Chicago， Illinois - officially the City of Chicago and colloquiallycolloquially adv.用白话， 用通俗语 known as Chicago， the Second City and the Windy City - is the third largest city of the United States after New York City and Los Angeles and is the largest inland city of the nation. According to the 2000 census， it has a population of 2，896，016 people. Classified as a world class city， it is the fourth largest in North America and the seventh largest in Western Hemisphere. The city itself covers 606.1 km2 (234.0 mi2) but when combined with its suburbs and eight collar counties， forming the greater metropolitan area known as Chicagoland， it encompassesencompass v.包围， 环绕， 包含或包括某事物 more than 5，000 mi2 with a population that nears approximately 10 million people. Chicago and Chicagoland， when combined with the greater Milwaukee region， is often considered a megacity or megalopolismegalopolis n.巨大都市， 人口稠密地带 with a population that nears approximately 12 million people.
A former frontier town in existence for over 175 years， Chicago is located in the midwest state of Illinois along the western shores of Lake Michigan. With several colloquial nicknames， Chicago is ranked by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network as one of the ten alpha world cities. Chicago is known for its cultural and ethnic diversity and frontier and political history. Its unique cuisine， skyscrapersskyscraper n.摩天楼， 高耸的烟囱 and sports teams are also the most recognized symbols of the city.
Chicago is in many ways the nation，s last great city. Sarah Bernhardt called it “the pulse of America” and， though long eclipsedeclipse n.食， 日蚀， 月蚀， 蒙蔽， 衰落 vt.引起日蚀， 引起月蚀， 超越， 使黯然失色 by Los Angeles as the nation，s second most populous city after New York， Chicago really does have it all， with less of the hassle and infrastructural problems of its coastal rivals.
Founded in the early 1800s， Chicago grew up with the country， serving as the main connection between the established east coast cities and the wide open Wild West frontier. This position on the sharp edge between civilization and wilderness made the city into a crucible of innovation. Many aspects of modern life， from skyscrapers to suburbiasuburbia n.郊区， 郊区居民， had their start， and perhaps their finest expression， here on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Despite burning to the ground in the legendary fire of 1871， Chicago boomed thereafter， doubling in population every decade and reaching two million around 1900， swollenswollen adj.肿胀的 by Irish and eastern European immigrants (Chicago still has the largest Polish population in the world outside Warsaw). In the early years of the twentieth century， it cemented a reputation as a place of apparently limitless opportunity， with jobs aplenty for those willing to work. The attraction was strongest among Deep South blacks： from 1900 to 1920 African Americans poured in， with more than 75，000 arriving during the war years of 1916~1918 alone. Long hours， poor pay and squalid working conditions were the catalysts that made Chicago the cradle of American trade unions. By around 1900 most workers were organized under the American Federation of Labor， and the 1894 Pullman strike saw black and white workers unite for almost the first time in the US. As hostilities intensifiedintensify vt.加强 vi.强化， the city，s workers became the driving force behind the leftwing “Wobblies.” Chicago has also long been an important center for black organization - both the Reverend Jesse Jackson，s Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the more militant Nation of Islam， founded by Elijah Mohammed in the 1940s， have their national headquarters on the city，s South Side.
During the Roaring Twenties， Chicago，s selfimage as a noholdsbarred free market was pushed to the limit by a new breed of entrepreneurentrepreneur n.〈法〉企业家， 主办人.Criminal syndicates， ruthlessly and brazenly run by the likes of gangsters like Al Capone and Bugsy Moran， took advantage of Prohibition to sell bootleg alcohol. Shootouts in the street between sharpsuited， Tommygunwielding mobsters were not as common as legend would have it， but the backroom dealing and iron - handed control they pioneered was later perfected by politicians such as former mayor Richard Daley - father of the present mayor - who ran Chicago single - handedly from the 1950s until his death in 1976. His brutal handling of antiwar demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention remains notorious. These days， the tourist authorities play down the mobstermobster n.〈美俚〉犯罪集团成员， 匪徒， 歹徒 era； few traces of the hoodlumhoodlum n.强盗， 无赖， 阿飞， 恶棍， 流氓 years exist， and those that do owe more to Hollywood than contemporary Chicago.
Today， Chicago，s towering skyline - the city has one of the world，s best collections of modern architecture， from Frank Lloyd Wright houses to the 110story Sears Towerdominates the pancake - flat prairies for hundreds of miles around. Chicago，s status as the cultural and financial heart of middle America is beyond question. The Loop downtown holds the head offices of many major US companies and some of the nation，s most important commodity markets， which together handle the buying and selling of one - third of the world，s agricultural and industrial products.