Bilal Hameed, Illinois real estate broker, License #475.219071
Affiliated with Crosstown Realtors Inc. · 1455 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago, IL 60613
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Chicago Neighborhoods

77 Official Areas and 178 Recognized Neighborhoods: Why Names Don't Match

Why the neighborhood name on a listing often differs from the City's map.

Bilal Hameed, Illinois real estate broker, License #475.219071 · Affiliated with Crosstown Realtors Inc.

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Chicago neighborhoods

The map says one thing. The listing says another.

  • Chicago has 77 official community areas, set in the 1920s to count people.
  • The City Council recognized 178 neighborhoods in 1993 (from a 1978 survey). The City says it doesn't use neighborhood lines for anything official.
  • So a listing can say "Wicker Park" while the City's map says "West Town."
Flatiron Arts Building, Milwaukee and North Avenues, Wicker Park

West Town on the map. Wicker Park on the listing.

Flatiron Arts Building, Milwaukee and North Avenues, Wicker Park. Photo: Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Zoom in

Tap an official area

Tap an area to see common neighborhood names inside it.

77 areas vs. 178 neighborhoods

Areas
77
Names
178

Areas: City community areas. Names: 1993 City Council ordinance. Source: WTTW, Jan 2022. Locals use even more names.

Infographic

How Chicago's selective schools rank

Left is better (1 is the top of the country). U.S. News 2026 via WTTW, Aug 2026. Gold dot: IMSA in Aurora, 4th in Illinois, so the top five are not all in Chicago.

More detail: how CPS admission works

How admission works (CPS)

  • Apply to up to six programs and rank them.
  • Seats fill by points: half from 7th-grade grades, half from the CPS test.
  • Address tiers apply. No sibling, staff or proximity preferences.

Source: CPS selective enrollment. Fair housing: we don't recommend where to live based on schools or who lives there.

Bilal Hameed, Illinois real estate broker, License #475.219071 · Affiliated with Crosstown Realtors Inc.

🏠 Equal Housing Opportunity. We never steer, screen or sort anyone by a protected trait. General information, not legal or financial advice.

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