Chicago

Chicago is the transportation hub of North America, and the most important urban center in the interior of the United States. Yet Chicago looks and feels like a coastal city with its position along the coast of Lake Michigan, one of the largest freshwater bodies in the world.

The city is famous for its innovative architectural tradition, and its collection of buildings benefits from an urban plan that gives the public many advantageous perspectives - a long chain of parks along the lakefront, a spectacular river flowing through the heart of downtown, an extensive system of parks and boulevards, two public observatories, and a number of well-defined plazas in the business district.

Today Chicago ranks with New York City, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Shanghai as one of the world's five largest skylines. From one end of the lakefront to the other, skyscrapers are lined up along the beautiful parks and beaches - rising higher and higher toward the center where dizzying clusters of towers reach for the clouds and beyond.