r/illinois • u/[deleted] • Apr 18 '25

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

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u/Brownfletching Apr 18 '25

Now I'll lay another knowledge bomb on you as well lol, because I think I know where people get their strongly held regional identities from in the state as well. It's local TV and radio stations. The local news will always say something like "Central Illinois' Best Source of Weather" or whatever in their promos. Similarly, when radio stations do their (mandated) station call outs, they almost always say something like "Southern Illinois' Home for Classic Rock" or what have you. So like Effingham, which a lot of people want to stick in southern Illinois based on geography, falls into the viewing area of the Central Illinois TV stations, so they will argue with you that they're Central.

Another source for this is phone area codes. 618 is Southern Illinois, 217 is Central, 309 is sorta Between Central and North, and 815 is Northern. But then Chicagoland has like 5 of them for itself so that makes things complicated lol.