Downstate Illinois

[Matthew Gordon]

Do Chicagoans consider Rockford or other locations east of Chicago as
"Downstate" too or does it have to be south of the city?

In Michigan the term for not-Detroit is "Outstate", if I recall
correctly though it's been a while.

Geoff Nathan wrote:

> At 09:49 AM 5/7/2004, Page Stephens wrote:
>
>> In a note about mountain oysters Doug Wilson uses the term "downstate
>> Illinois".
>>
>> Having grown up in Centralia, Illinois which is approximately 65 miles
>> directly east of St. Louis we used to consider ourselves to be from
>> southern
>> Illinois. On the other hand I have heard my friends from Chicago refer to
>> anything south of Chicago as downstate, and I have known people who lived
>> south of Centralia suggest that Centralia is only marginally in southern
>> Illinois if at all.
>
>
> And having spent 22 of the past 24 years in Carbondale, Illinois I concur
> with Page's comments about what is 'downstate' and what is 'Southern'
> Illinois.  We often joked that for Chicagoans, Joliet was
> 'Downstate'.  Centralia is certainly at the northern margin of Southern
> Illinois.  It is south of I-70 (often considered to mark the isogloss
> between Northern and Southern dialects), but north of I-64.  Of course
> even
> Carbondale isn't at the bottom of the state--that honor is reserved for
> Cairo, which some will recall was an entry point to the Underground
> Railway, and is an additional fifty miles further towards the Gulf.
>
> Geoff
>