Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in the state outside the Chicago metropolitan area. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents in 2020.
Champaign shares the main campus of the University of Illinois with its twin city of Urbana and is also home to Parkland College, which gives the city a large student population during the academic year.Parkland College – About Us – Quick Facts . Parkland.edu. Retrieved on August 17, 2013. Due to the university and a number of technology startup companies, it is often referred to as a hub of the Illinois Silicon Prairie. Champaign houses offices for the Fortune 500 companies Abbott, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Caterpillar, John Deere, Dow Chemical Company, IBM, and State Farm. Champaign also serves as the headquarters for several companies, including Jimmy John's.
History 19th century
Champaign was founded in 1855, when the Illinois Central Railroad laid its rail track two miles (3 km) west of downtown Urbana. Originally called "West Urbana", it was renamed Champaign when it acquired a city charter in 1860. Both the city and county name were derived from Champaign County, Ohio, which took its name from the French word for "open, level country".
20th century In February 1969, Carl Perkins joined with Bob Dylan to write the song "Champaign, Illinois", which Perkins released on his album On Top. The band Old 97's took another Bob Dylan song, "Desolation Row", and combined its melody with new lyrics to make a new song "Champaign, Illinois", which they released with Dylan's blessing on their 2010 album The Grand Theatre Volume One. It achieved considerable popularity. The two "Champaign, Illinois" songs are not similar to each other, except that Bob Dylan was involved in both of them.
On September 22, 1985, Champaign hosted the first Farm Aid concert at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium. The concert drew a crowd of 80,000 people and raised over $7 million for American family farmers.
21st century In 2005, the University of Illinois in Champaign was the location of the National Science Olympiad Tournament, attracting young scientists from all 50 states. The city also hosts the state Science Olympiad competition every year. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign once again hosted the National competition on May 20–22, 2010.
Joan Severns was the city's first female mayor, serving between 1979 and 1983. Deborah Frank Feinen, who has served as mayor since 2015, is the city's second female mayor. In May 2017, the city's first female-majority city council was sworn in.
Geography Location According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Champaign has a total area of , of which (or 99.37%) is land and (or 0.63%) is water.
Champaign is a city in central Illinois and is located on relatively high ground, providing sources to the Kaskaskia River to the west, and the Embarras River to the south. Downtown Champaign drains into Boneyard Creek, which feeds the Saline Branch of the Salt Fork Vermilion River.
Champaign shares a border with the neighboring city of Urbana; together they are home to the University of Illinois. Champaign, Urbana, and the bordering village of Savoy form the Champaign–Urbana Metropolitan Area, also known as "Champaign–Urbana". It may also be colloquially known as the "Twin Cities", "Chambana" or "Shampoo–Banana".
Climate The city has a humid continental climate, typical of the Midwestern United States, with hot summers and cold, moderately snowy winters. Temperatures exceed 90 °F (32.2 °C) on an average of 24 days per year, and typically fall below 0 °F (−17.8 °C) on six nights annually. The record high temperature in Champaign was 109 °F (42.8 °C) in 1954, and the record low was −25 °F (−31.7 °C), recorded on four separate occasions − in 1899, 1905, 1994 and 1999.
Demographics
Racial and ethnic composition
+Champaign, Illinois – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010% 2000% 2010White alone (NH)48,16852,53345,40971.34%64.81%51.42%Black or African American alone (NH)10,47112,47415,62515.51%15.39%17.96%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)132143990.20%0.18%0.11%Asian alone (NH)4,5918,51014,7056.80%10.50%16.65%Pacific Islander alone (NH)2056270.03%0.07%0.03%Other race alone (NH)1451624310.21%0.20%0.49%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)1,2672,0664,2891.88%2.55%4.86%Hispanic or Latino (any race)2,7245,1117,7174.03%6.31%8.74%Total67,51881,05588,302100.00%100.00%100.00%
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Champaign had a population of 88,302 and a population density of . The median age was 26.7 years. 16.8% of residents were under the age of 18 and 10.1% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 100.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 99.6 males age 18 and over.
There were 36,545 households and 15,624 families in Champaign; 21.4% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 29.4% were married-couple households, 29.6% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 34.2% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 39.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 40,314 housing units at an average density of , of which 9.3% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.1% and the rental vacancy rate was 9.4%.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 47,201 53.5% Black or African American 15,866 18.0% American Indian and Alaska Native 326 0.4% Asian 14,737 16.7% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 40 0.0% Some other race 3,494 4.0% Two or more races 6,638 7.5%
American Community Survey estimates
In the 2018–2022 American Community Survey, 16.69% of residents were Asian, including 6.34% Chinese, 3.92% Indian, 1.83% Korean, 1.05% Filipino, 0.86% Vietnamese, 0.46% Thai, and 0.27% Pakistani.
Income
The median income for a household in the city was $49,467, and the median income for a family was $78,118. Males had a median income of $36,680 versus $27,805 for females. The per capita income for the city was $30,245. About 10.3% of families and 23.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.3% of those under age 18 and 9.4% of those age 65 or over. Government
Economy
In addition to the University of Illinois, Champaign is also home to Parkland College. Herff Jones, formerly Collegiate Cap and Gown, and Kraft also form part of the city's industrial base. Kraft's plant is one of the largest pasta factories in North America. The Champaign-Urbana community is a well-known hub for startups, including a top ranking from Silicon Prairie News in 2019.
Champaign is home to nationally recognized record labels, artist management companies, booking agencies, and recording studios. Polyvinyl Records, Undertow Music, Parasol Records, Great Western Record Recorders, Pogo Studios, and Nicodemus Booking Agency are all based in Champaign.
In April 2011, The Christian Science Monitor named Champaign-Urbana one of the five cities leading the economic turnaround based on jobs; the information sector added over 300 jobs within a year and unemployment dropped 2.1%.Local jobs: Top five cities leading the turnaround Christian Science Monitor – April 15, 2011
Research Park
Champaign features a large technology and software industry mostly focusing on research and development of new technologies. The Research Park, located on campus land just south of the State Farm Center and run by the University of Illinois, is home to many companies, including Caterpillar, ADM, John Deere, AbbVie, Motorola Solutions, Brunswick, Capital One, Cargill, NVIDIA, Riverbed Technology, Abbott Laboratories, Yahoo! and the State Farm Research and Development Center.
Research Park is also home to a technology incubator, EnterpriseWorks, that has launched over 350 startups since its opening in 2014. Famous graduates of EnterpriseWorks include Agrible, which was sold to Nutrien in 2018 for $63 million, and Starfire, which later moved to its own 190,000 sq ft building in the northwest side of Champaign.
Top employers
According to the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, the top ten employers in the city are:
# Employer # of Employees1University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign13,9342Carle Foundation Hospital6,9213Champaign Unit 4 School District1,6644Kraft Heinz9255Christie Clinic9166Champaign County8937Urbana School District#1168288FedEx8159OSF HealthCare77410Parkland College741
Other major employers include Horizon Hobby, Jimmy John's, Plastipak, SuperValu, and Wolfram Research. Numerous other software and technology companies also have offices in Champaign including Ansys, Amdocs, Cloudflare, Instarecon, Phonak, Power World, and Caterpillar Simulation Center. The largest high technology employer is Wolfram Research, with more than 400 employees in Champaign. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign.
Arts and culture Landmarks and districts
Downtown
In the 1980s, part of the downtown Champaign area (Neil St.) was closed to vehicular traffic to create a pedestrian mall, but this short-lived experiment was scrapped when business declined. As part of a revitalization effort, One Main Development constructed two new mixed-use buildings: One Main and M2 on Neil. The City of Champaign gave $3.7 million in tax incentives for the building of M2 and agreed to pay nearly $11 million for a new parking deck.
This growth in downtown Champaign coincided with the larger growth of the "north Prospect" shopping district on the city's northern boundary. The growth in the north Prospect area relied, in part, on leapfrogging, moving out to the countryside and developing more remote farmland that eventually connects to the main development. Given the overwhelming success of such suburban shopping areas nationally, new development within any city center represented an alternative to the dominant movement out and away from the cities.
The Champaign City Building serves as the City Hall and is a recognizable landmark. The building replaces the original city building, which sat on the same site until 1937.
The historic Virginia Theatre is a restored 1463-seat movie theater which opened on December 28, 1921. It has an ornate, Spanish Renaissance-influenced interior, full stage and dressing rooms, and its original Wurlitzer pipe organ. It hosts Ebertfest and has a single 56' x 23' screen. The theater does not have a daily show schedule, but schedules special screenings and live performances several times each month.
The Art Theater Co-op, which showed independent and foreign films, was built in 1913 as the Park Theatre. From 1969 to 1986, it showed adult films.Cinema Treasures: Boardman's Art Theatre Cinematreasures.org, Accessed October 18, 2007 Until its closing in October 2019, it was the only single-screen movie theater operating daily in Champaign-Urbana, and was the United States' first co-operatively owned art movie theater.Art Theater Cooperative takes over , News-gazette.com, Accessed May 14, 2013 The Champaign County Welcome Center is located at 17 East Taylor Street in downtown Champaign and provides visitors with information about local attractions and events.
Campustown