Illiopolis, Illinois
11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Illiopolis Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62539. The Survey maps it on the Niantic quadrangle. 846 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 600 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresIlliopolis fell from 891 to 846 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 891 | |
| 2020 | 846 | -45 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 11 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1954 USGS Niantic quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1961 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1982 USGS Niantic quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Springfield quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
In the county-history sources
6,404 words on this townshipHistory of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881 names this settlement in its chapter on Illiopolis Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
The township of Illiopolis is in the eastern part of the county, and is bounded on the east by Macon county, on the west by Wheatfield township, on the north by Logan county, and on the south by Christian. From the peculiar shape of the county, the old settlers used to call the territory comprising the township the coon's tail.
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
The township is five miles wide from east to west, and its mean length from north to south about eight miles. The soil of the township is a heavy black loam, and is especially adapted to all kinds of cereals.
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
The first settlement made in what is now Illiopolis township was in 1826, by Mrs. Anderson, a widow lady, who settled on section thirtyfour. Soon after, Mr. Allen, Joel Watkins, Chesley Dickerson, William Gregg, James Hampton, John Churchill, John and James Hunter, Josiah Kent, William Bridges, and others came. All these settled in or near the Sangamon river timber. The township being mostly prairie, prevented its rapid settlement, and consequently it did not develop like some others, and it was not until some time after the railroad was built that the prairie began to be improved to any great extent. Now some of the finest and most highly cultivated farms in the county, are the prairie farms of Illiopolis.
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Illiopolis Township - it names this place 51 more 51 times.
Fires near this place
2 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Illiopolis in 2009, burning about 4 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Smoking | 1 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 March 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | DAVIS |
| 17 March 2009 | Smoking | 2.0 acres | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | SMITH |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
7 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Illiopolis in 7 storm reports between 1996 and 2013: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 2 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Illiopolis | $22,000 | A large tree was blown onto a truck. |
| June 2003 | Tornado (F0) | Illiopolis | - | A tornado briefly touched down in a field. No damage or injuries were reported. |
| April 2000 | Tornado (F0) | Illiopolis | - | A tornado briefly touched down one mile south of Illiopolis. A porch on a home was damaged, a grain bin was damaged, and several power lines were blown down. No injuries were reported. |
| June 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Illiopolis | - | One tree was broken off near its base. Also, several large tree limbs were blown down. |
| April 2000 | Hail | Illiopolis | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Hail | Illiopolis | - | no account filed |
| April 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Illiopolis | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haynes | 2.9 miles | 10 | |
| Saunders | 3.5 miles | 10 | |
| Lanesville | 5.7 miles | 10 | |
| Mechanicsburg | 8.8 miles | 10 | |
| Buffalo | 8.8 miles | 10 | |
| Buffalo Hart | 11.7 miles | 11 | |
| Dawson | 11.7 miles | 10 | |
| Buckhart | 12.9 miles | 12 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Illiopolis | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2671777 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 410774. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.




