Sometimes called the Tall State, Illinois resembles a piece being cut from a jigsaw puzzle by water. The Mississippi River separates Illinois from Missouri and Iowa on the west, while Kentucky and Missouri lie on the south side of the Ohio River.
On the east, much of the Illinois-Indiana border is defined by the Wabash River. Where the border departs from the Wabash, it becomes a straight line running north to Lake Michigan, which appears as a great bite out of Illinois’ northeast corner. Illinois’ other straight-line border separates it from Wisconsin on the north.
In northwestern Illinois is the Driftless Area, which was untouched by the Wisconsin Glaciation (40,000 to 10,000 years ago). Here rolling, wooded hills include Charles Mound, at over 1,200 feet Illinois’ highest elevation.
The Mississippi River and rivers that flow into it, especially the Illinois River, have carved long ranges of bluffs. Thick loess along the bluffs harbor abundant fossils of Ice Age land snails. The limestone bluffs of the Ozark Plateau stretch into a small part of southwestern Illinois.
But most of Illinois is flat. Numerous bison, elk, deer, black bears, wolves, and mountain lions greeted early settlers, many of whom arrived from the East via the Ohio River. They found almost half of Illinois forested, with great patches of prairie clothed in waist-high grasses. Seen from the air, Illinois is now a quilt made of fields of corn, soybeans, oats, and alfalfa.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - 
