Illinois's 1st Congressional District - Composition Until 2013

Composition Until 2013

The district is adjacent to the 2nd District to the east and south, the 7th District to the north, and the 3rd and 13th Districts to the west, and also borders the 11th District at its southwest corner. The district's northeast border follows Lake Michigan's shoreline for almost a mile.

The district was created following the 1830 U.S. Census and came into existence in 1833, five months before Chicago was organized as a town; the state was previously represented in the U.S. House of Representatives on an at-large basis. The district initially included Southwestern Illinois until 1853 and the state's northern edge until 1863. Since that time, the district has included all or part of Cook County, with its population primarily residing on Chicago's South Side since 1883. Historical populations reflected waves of immigration into the area: previous majority populations were ethnic Irish, German, and east European. The Irish were the first to establish their physical and political control of the area within the city's South Side.

Today the district has the highest percentage (65.5) of African-American residents among congressional districts in the nation. It has been represented in Congress by African Americans since 1929, after the Great Migration had brought many African Americans to the South Side of Chicago from the rural South. It has been one of the most reliably Democratic districts in the country, although not to the extent that it was during the 1980s, when more than 90% of the district's residents were black. The district has not elected a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives since 1932, and Democratic congressional candidates routinely receive over 80% of the vote here.