11 Things Illinoisans Do That Would Horrify the Rest of America

Illinois is a state of magnificent contradictions — a world-class global city stapled to the top of an enormous stretch of farmland, small towns, and mid-American pragmatism that couldn’t be more different from Chicago if it tried, and it has been trying for approximately 200 years. The Land of Lincoln contains the third largest city in America, some of the flattest terrain on the continent, and a political history so colorful it has produced more governors sent to federal prison than any other state, a fact Illinoisans mention with the exhausted pride of people who have simply stopped being surprised. Deep dish is waiting. Try to stay out of the left lane.

1. Conduct the Chicago versus “downstate” divide like a cold war with occasional flare-ups

To Chicagoans, everything south of I-80 is “downstate” — a vague, flat elsewhere populated by people with different priorities and a suspicion of the city that is mutual and longstanding. To downstate Illinoisans, Chicago is a separate entity that happens to share a state border and dominates every political conversation while knowing nothing about how the rest of Illinois actually lives. Both sides are partially correct. Neither side is particularly interested in reconciliation.

2. Argue about deep dish versus thin crust with the ferocity of a constitutional debate

Chicago deep dish — thick, buttery, inverted, more casserole than pizza by conventional geometry — is what the rest of the world associates with Chicago pizza. But actual Chicagoans eat tavern-style thin crust far more often: a cracker-thin crust cut into squares, not triangles, served in a neighborhood bar, unpretentious and perfect. The deep dish versus thin crust debate is conducted with genuine passion and the occasional personal insult. Out-of-towners who order deep dish are indulged. Locals order the thin.

3. Navigate Chicago’s neighborhoods like a native anthropologist with strong opinions about each one

Chicago has 77 officially designated community areas and somewhere north of 200 distinct neighborhoods, and Chicagoans navigate this geography with the precision of someone who knows exactly what each block means, who lives there, what the coffee shop situation is, and how the parking runs. “Where are you from?” in Chicago means which neighborhood, and the answer tells you everything. “The North Side” is not enough information. Not even close.

4. Defend the Chicago-style hot dog with a dogmatic purity that permits zero exceptions

The Chicago hot dog is a Vienna Beef frank, steamed, in a poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt. That is the Chicago hot dog. There is no ketchup. There has never been ketchup. There will never be ketchup. Asking for ketchup on a Chicago hot dog is not merely a preference — it is a provocation, and it will be treated accordingly.

5. Refer to every expressway by a name instead of its number and expect everyone to follow along

The Dan Ryan. The Eisenhower. The Kennedy. The Stevenson. The Edens. Chicago’s expressways all have proper names that Chicagoans use exclusively, and navigating the city by highway number alone marks you immediately as someone who is not from here. Traffic reports reference the names. GPS apps use the numbers. Chicagoans mentally translate in real time and find the numbers vaguely unnecessary.

6. Take an almost perverse pride in the brutality of the winters and refuse to admit defeat

Chicago winters are genuinely, measurably brutal — wind chills that drop to -30°F, lake effect snow, ice storms, and a relentless gray that settles in November and doesn’t fully lift until April. Chicagoans walk into this weather with their chins down and their pace unchanged, wearing expressions that communicate absolute refusal to acknowledge that the weather has won. Complaining is permitted. Slowing down is not. The city operates. The winter is noted and dismissed.

7. Eat an Italian beef sandwich — wet — without flinching and consider it a character test

The Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced seasoned beef, slow-roasted and piled onto Italian bread, dipped entirely into the cooking juices until thoroughly saturated — ordered “wet” or “dipped” — and consumed while standing over a counter because sitting down with one is a structural impossibility. It drips. It soaks through the paper. It requires commitment. Chicagoans eat them without breaking eye contact. First-timers need a moment to prepare.

8. Acknowledge the corruption cheerfully and vote in every election anyway

Illinois has sent four governors to federal prison in the modern era. Chicago’s political machine is one of the most storied and scrutinized in American history. Illinoisans are aware of all of this. They discuss it with a dark humor that comes from long familiarity, show up to vote with impressive consistency, complain about Springfield with great specificity, and continue participating in the democratic process with the stubborn civic energy of people who refuse to give the whole thing up even knowing what they know.

9. Treat Portillo’s like a sacred dining institution that cannot be replicated or replaced

Portillo’s — a Chicago-born chain serving hot dogs, Italian beef, char-broiled burgers, and chocolate cake shakes of unreasonable deliciousness — is treated by Chicagoans with the reverence usually reserved for Michelin-starred establishments. Transplants who move away from Chicago report craving Portillo’s with a longing that borders on grief. Locations have opened in other states and are immediately overwhelmed by the Chicago diaspora, who drive unreasonable distances and feel completely justified doing so.

10. Ignore Indiana completely despite sharing a very long border with it

Illinois and Indiana share 155 miles of border and approximately zero cultural bandwidth. Chicagoans are aware Indiana exists in the way they’re aware of background noise — present, noted, not particularly engaging. Indiana residents near the border often work in Illinois, shop in Illinois, and root for Illinois sports teams. Illinois residents near the border sometimes forget the border is there. Indiana has feelings about this. Illinois does not notice.

11. Leave Illinois, complain about Illinois from wherever they land, and never fully stop being from Illinois

Illinois — Chicago especially — produces one of the most recognizable and persistent diasporas in the country. People leave for taxes, for weather, for opportunity, and immediately form Illinois friend groups in their new city, find the nearest Portillo’s, watch the Bears with a loyalty that distance only intensifies, and spend a meaningful portion of every conversation explaining Chicago to people who think they already understand it. You can take the person out of Illinois. The Illinois does not come out of the person.

Illinois is exhausting and magnificent and slightly corrupt and deeply, unreasonably proud of its food, its city, its sports teams, and its ability to produce both Abraham Lincoln and a breathtaking number of indicted public officials from the same geographic and political tradition. Chicago alone would be enough — one of the great cities of the world, sitting on a lake that looks like an ocean, with architecture that stops people on the sidewalk and a food culture that requires a dedicated itinerary. But Illinois is also the flat middle, the county fairs, the small towns along the Illinois River, the corn stretching to every horizon under a sky so wide it makes you feel very small and very free at the same time. It contains multitudes. It has earned every single one of them.