Illinois

Illinois is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. While the organization of the central government of Illinois is largely the same as every other state (having three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial), below this top level, the substructure of Illinois' government is extremely complex, arguably the most complex of all fifty states.

Illinois has more units of local government than any other state—over 8,000 in all.^[1] The basic subdivision of Illinois is like almost every other state, the county, and Illinois has 102 of these. About half of these counties, in turn, are divided into townships, which is much the same as many other Midwestern states. Finally, Illinois has a number of cities, villages, and towns commensurate with a state of its size.