Geographic Region: Municipalities
In Illinois, municipalities include cities, villages, and towns. IECAM uses the term municipality instead of incorporated place for these three types of places.
There are about 1,294 municipalities in Illinois: roughly 300 cities, 978 villages, and 16 towns. The number of municipalities in Illinois may vary slightly from year to year. The list of municipalities periodically changes as old municipalities are dissolved, new municipalities are incorporated, municipalities undergo boundary changes, or municipalities change their names. Although the number of changes is very small, nevertheless note that
- the number of municipalities may change from year to year,
- municipality X in one year may not cover the same geographic area as municipality X the following year, and
- a municipality may not have the same name from one year to the next.
Almost all site-based data (e.g., child care) and almost all demographic data (e.g., population) are presented by municipality on the IECAM database. Non-site-based data (e.g., home visiting, early intervention) are not presented by municipality.
When a user searches by year and by municipality in the basic database search, IECAM presents results only for those municipalities that existed in that year. When a user searches by municipality and several years in the multiyear search, IECAM presents results for all municipalities that existed in any of the years selected. If the municipality did not exist in one of the selected years, an indication such as “N/A” will appear in that particular table cell.
Source of definition: U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division. Geographic Terms and Concepts: Place