Chicago has one of the largest French communities in the American Midwest. The Alliance Française de Chicago, founded in 1897, is among the oldest and most active in the country — running language programmes, cultural events, and an annual Bastille Day celebration that brings the city's Francophiles together every July.
The Alliance Française de Chicago organises the main Bastille Day events in the city, typically held at venues in the Loop and the Near North Side. The celebration includes a reception, French food and wine, and cultural programming — music, film, and speaker events reflecting both French heritage and the Franco-American relationship.
The French Market at the Ogilvie Transportation Center — a year-round indoor market modelled on Parisian covered markets — runs special Bastille Day programming in July, with French food vendors, cheese specialists, and wine merchants offering tastings timed to the holiday.
French explorers and missionaries were among the first Europeans in the Chicago region. Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette passed through the portage between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines in 1673 — the strategic water route that later made Chicago the junction of the continent. The city of Chicago stands on land first mapped and named by French cartographers.
The name Chicago itself comes from the Miami-Illinois language, recorded by French explorers as shikaakwa — the wild garlic or wild leek that grew in the marshes at the river's mouth. It was the French who fixed the name to the place, and it has stayed ever since.
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