1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
United States
Compare this sourced profile of Chicago, United States before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Chicago—2,664,452, America/Chicago, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city and county seat of Cook County, and largest city in State of Illinois, United States of America.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Chicago is GeoNames ID 4887398. Its recorded administrative path is Cook County → Illinois → United States, and GeoNames classifies the place as a second-order administrative seat. Chicago occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2025-06-21; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Chicago ranks 144 by recorded population. Inside the 43 selected United States entries it ranks 4; inside the 198 entries in its broad region it ranks 17. Its 2,664,452 population value is 3.41 times the 780,995 median for the country cohort and 3.26 times the 816,326 regional median. Chicago falls inside the leading tenth of this atlas's United States population cohort. Chicago's recorded value reaches at least twice the country-cohort median in this snapshot. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Chicago's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Milwaukee at 133.86 km with 563,531 recorded people; Indianapolis at 263.325 km with 887,642 recorded people; Detroit at 383.632 km with 645,705 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 249.772 km. Compared with Milwaukee, Chicago's recorded population is 4.73 times as large. Against Chicago, Milwaukee follows Milwaukee County → Wisconsin → United States in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected United States cohort, uses the shared America/Chicago identifier, and carries the same second-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Chicago's. Against Chicago, Indianapolis follows Marion County → Indiana → United States in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected United States cohort, uses America/Indiana/Indianapolis instead of America/Chicago, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Chicago's. Against Chicago, Detroit follows Wayne County → Michigan → United States in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected United States cohort, uses America/Detroit instead of America/Chicago, and carries the same second-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Chicago's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 831 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Chicago's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 4887398, the coordinate pair 41.8500 / 87.6501, country rank 4 of 43, and neighbor GeoNames 5263045 at 133.86 km bind Chicago to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Chicago's reference point is 41.8500° north and 87.6501° west. The IANA identifier America/Chicago is shared by 11 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA2 is shared by 341 rows. Chicago's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Chicago's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Chicago's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames records Chicago at 179 metres above sea level, a single reference value rather than a description of slopes across the city. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Chicago's closest other entries in this atlas are Milwaukee (133.86 km), Indianapolis (263.325 km), Detroit (383.632 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Chicago, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2025-06-21; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.