Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, on the western shore of Lake Michigan about 12 miles north of the Chicago Loop. It is a Chicago suburb bordered by Wilmette to the north, Skokie to the west, Chicago to the south and the lake to the east. The 2020 census counted 78,110 residents. Methodist business leaders who had founded Northwestern University in 1851 laid out the town, named it for their fellow leader John Evans, and the community dates from 1857; it was incorporated as a town in 1863 and organized as a city in 1892. Northwestern University remains the best known institution in the city, and Evanston is also the headquarters of Rotary International and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The city stayed dry until 1972 and in 2021 became the first in the United States to pay reparations for housing discrimination.