Chicago is located in Illinois in the midwest of the United States. It is adjacent to Lake Michigan, one of the magnificent Great Lakes in North America. It is one of the famous international financial centers and the third most populous city in the United States (after new york and Los Angeles). Located in the center of the North American continent, Chicago is the second largest commercial center and the largest futures market in the United States. The number of new enterprises in its metropolitan area has always ranked first in the United States and has been rated as the most balanced economy in the United States. In addition, Chicago has four of the top ten tallest skyscrapers in the United States, and the Sears Tower, once the tallest building in the world (holding the world record for the tallest building in 1974-1998), which is known as the "hometown of skyscrapers". At the same time, Chicago is also the railway and aviation hub of the United States and one of the most important cultural and educational centers in the world: it has a world-class university, the University of Chicago and a world-renowned Chicago school, and nearly 100 Nobel Prize winners have worked and studied in Chicago (89 in Chicago and 8 in Northwest University).
Common nicknames of Chicago are "windy city" and "Chicago city". It is a world-famous tourist destination, receiving more than 50 million tourists from all over the world in 20 14. The time zone of Central Time in the United States represented by Chicago is UTC/GMT-6 (the sixth district in the west), which is 14 hours different from Beijing Time in UTC/GMT+8 (the eighth district in the east) (Chicago daylight saving time difference 13 hours).