19 Nicknames for Chicago: How Well Do You Know the Windy City?

The true stories behind the most well-known nicknames for Chicago

Co-authored by Dan Hickey

Last Updated: December 10, 2025 Fact Checked

Most big cities in the US have at least one popular nickname—like “The Big Apple” for New York City, “Motor City” for Detroit, or “City of Angels” for Los Angeles—but few have as many nicknames as the Windy City itself, Chicago! In this article, we’ll break down the most well-known nicknames for Chicago and where they come from (even the ones that the locals don’t care for). Keep scrolling to see how many you recognize!

The Most Popular Nicknames for Chicago

The Windy City
The Second City
The City of Big Shoulders
Chi-Town (or The Chi)
City in a Garden
Chicagoland

1

The Windy City

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Chicago was dubbed “The Windy City” because of its bragging politicians. Chicago is definitely windy, but the weather is not what inspired this nickname. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the city quickly rebuilt itself and was eager to show off its new, modern urban landscape. Around the same time, Chicago and New York City were competing to host the upcoming World’s Fair in 1893. The New Yorkers thought Chicagoans were just boasting and that all their talk was just hot air coming from a bunch of political windbags—hence the name, The Windy City.^{[1]
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- All the boasting paid off, though. Chicago was selected to host the World’s Fair, and it’s considered one of the most successful on record.

2

The Second City

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Chicago’s rapid growth made it the second-largest city in the US after NYC. There are a few theories about where this nickname comes from. The first is the most obvious—in the second half of the 19th century, Chicago’s population boomed due to rapid growth in industry, railroads, and immigration. By 1900, the city had a population of 1.7 million, making it the second most populous and influential city in the US. A columnist for The New Yorker coined the nickname as a derogatory remark, but the city embraced the new nickname (as well as its elevated national status).^{[2]
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- Another theory says that Chicagoans referred to themselves as The Second City after rebuilding from the Great Fire. The new and improved urban design was seen as a second (or new) Chicago.
- In 1959, a small improvisational theater troupe named itself “The Second City” to mock the condescending tone from the East Coast. The Second City is now one of the preeminent comedy theaters in the US and is known for sending many comedians to Saturday Night Live.
- Is Chicago still the “second” city? No, Chicago is no longer the second most populous US city. In 1984, Los Angeles, California, overtook Chicago, which has remained the third largest city since.^{[3]
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3

The City of Big Shoulders

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This nickname comes from Carl Sandburg’s 1914 poem, “Chicago.” In the poem, Sandburg describes the working-class people, tradesmen, and laborers who built Chicago into a thriving, large city.^{[4]
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Research source} At the time, the city was also known for its importance as a provider of meat, transportation, steel, and more. The nickname speaks to the work ethic and down-to-earth attitude of Chicago’s people, who still embrace the name today.
- It’s also sometimes called “The City of Broad Shoulders” (rather than “Big”).

4

Chi-Town / The Chi

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These are trendy nicknames coined by tourists and suburbanites. There are lots of cities around the US that add “-town” to a shortened version of their name (like H-Town for Houston, TX), and Chicago is no different. The earliest mention of Chi-Town comes from a 1900 newspaper article, and the name has become popular with visitors, tourists, and local suburbanites outside the city.^{[5]
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- Most locals don’t use or like Chi-Town or The Chi, though. From their perspective, they’re a bit unoriginal and boring.^{[6]
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- “Summertime Chi” is another nickname that visitors and some locals use to celebrate summer in Chicago, which is known for its hot and humid weather, beach festivities, street festivals, and boating on Lake Michigan.

5

Chiberia

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Chiberia (Chicago + Siberia) pokes fun at the city’s frigid winter temperatures. Chicago can get cold in the winter. In 2014, the nickname was coined by CBS meteorologist Richard Castro to describe some of the coldest weather the city had experienced in decades. Chiberia continues to make an appearance whenever Chicago experiences a cold snap, like during the polar vortex of 2019.^{[7]
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- Did you know? The coldest recorded temperature in Chicago is -27°F (-33°C) on January 20, 1985. If you count the wind chill, the coldest temperature was -57°F (-49°C) on December 24, 1983.^{[8]
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6

Chiraq

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Like in all big US cities, crime is a problem in Chicago. The media has certainly latched onto the idea (fairly or not), and it was ABC reporter Chuck Goudie who claimed that the nickname refers to a grim statistic. From 2003 to 2012, 4,265 people were killed in Chicago, which was nearly equal to the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in the same period. The nickname surged in popularity around the end of the Iraq War, and is also the title of a 2015 Spike Lee film.^{[9]
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7

City in a Garden

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Chicago’s official motto, Urbs in Horto, translates to “City in a Garden.” The motto was adopted in 1837 when Chicago was incorporated as a city. The motto appears on the city’s official seal and refers to the extensive network of parks, beaches, and green spaces that predated the city’s official founding.^{[10]
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Research source} Over the years, Chicago’s park system has grown and been beautified even more, making it a world-class example of green spaces in urban environments.
- The Chicago Park District adopted a seal in 1934 that contains the Latin phrase Hortus in Urbe, meaning “Garden in a City” (the inverse of “City in a Garden”).^{[11]
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8

Chicagoland

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Chicagoland is a large region dominated by Chicago’s economy and infrastructure. The Chicago metropolitan area is massive—about 9.5 million people in 10,286 square miles (28,120 km²)—and includes 14 counties in Illinois, northwestern Indiana, and southeastern Wisconsin.^{[12]
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Research source} The region is connected by interstate and rail infrastructure that runs through the city and has one of the largest and most diversified economies in the world.
- The name Chicagoland was most likely coined by Col. Robert McCormick in The Chicago Tribune in 1926, but the origins of the nickname aren’t totally known.

9

Hog Butcher to the World

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Also coined by Carl Sandburg in his 1914 poem, “Chicago,” the name was popular for more than 100 years. It’s mostly fallen out of favor these days (the Union Stock Yards closed in 1971), but it’s sometimes used in a nostalgic sense to describe an era when meatpacking was Chicago’s largest industry and fueled the city’s booming population and industrial growth.^{[13]
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10

The White City

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The gleaming white buildings of the 1983 World’s Fair inspired this nickname. Although the buildings no longer exist in their original form (and the nickname has mostly faded from memory), the temporary pavilions and exhibition halls from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition dazzled visitors from all over the globe. Considering the city had been destroyed by the Great Fire only 22 years prior, fairgoers were astounded at the beauty and craftsmanship that defined the rebuilt Chicago.^{[14]
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- Most people today probably recognize this nickname from Erik Larson’s 2003 historical non-fiction book The Devil in the White City, which tells the true stories of architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer H. H. Holmes during the Fair.

11

The City That Works (And Other Nicknames)

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This nickname was popularized by the Daley mayoral dynasty. Mayor Richard J. Daley (mayor from 1955–1976) coined this nickname during his mayoral tenure in the 1970s to describe Chicago as a blue-collar, hard-working city, which ran relatively smoothly.^{[15]
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Research source} The nickname was also used by his son, Richard M. Daley (mayor from 1989 to 2011). Both mayors were known for major infrastructure projects and urban developments, transforming Chicago into a world-class city that has earned many additional nicknames, including:^{[16]
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- The Great American City: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer's book Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968) refers to Chicago as “perhaps [the last] of the great American cities” and labeled it as quintessentially American.
- That Toddlin’ Town: “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” was a song published in 1922 and popularized by Frank Sinatra in 1957.
- My Kind of Town: “My Kind of Town” was a song about Chicago sung by Frank Sinatra in the 1964 film Robin and the 7 Hoods.
- The Third Coast: The coast of the Great Lakes, where Chicago is situated, is sometimes called this (after the East and West coasts).
- City by the Lake: This is an early nickname for Chicago from the 1890s.
- Mud City: This is one of the oldest nicknames for Chicago, describing the mud flats that existed before the city was built.
- The 312: 312 was the original area code that encompassed the entire city (there are now several others).
- Paris on the Prairie: This was a name for the city given by architect Daniel Burnham in his famous “Plan for Chicago.”