Middle West, Midwest - the north central region of the United States (sometimes called the heartland or the breadbasket of America)

American state - one of the 50 states of the United States

Cairo - a town at the southern tip of Illinois at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

Carbondale - a town in southern Illinois

Champaign - a university town in east central Illinois adjoining Urbana

Chicago, Windy City - largest city in Illinois; a bustling Great Lakes port that extends 26 miles along the southwestern shoreline of Lake Michigan

Decatur - a city in central Illinois; Abraham Lincoln practiced law here

East Saint Louis - a town in southwest Illinois on the Mississippi across from Saint Louis

Moline - a town in northwest Illinois on the Mississippi River

Peoria - a city in central Illinois on the Illinois River

Rockford - a city in northern Illinois

Rock Island - a town in northwest Illinois on the Mississippi River; site of a Union prison during the Civil War

capital of Illinois, Springfield - capital of the state of Illinois

Urbana - a university town in east central Illinois adjoining Champaign

Illinois River - a river in Illinois that flows southwest to the Mississippi River

Little Wabash, Little Wabash River - a river in eastern Illinois that flows southeastward to the Wabash River

cardinal - being or denoting a numerical quantity but not order; "cardinal numbers"