Present-day Springfield was settled by European Americans in the late 1810s, around the time Illinois became a state.
As of 2019, the city's population was estimated to have decreased to 114,230, with just over 211,700 residents living in the Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Sangamon County and the adjacent Menard County. Census, which makes it the state's sixth most-populous city, the second largest outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (after Rockford), and the largest in central Illinois. The city's population was 116,250 at the 2010 U.S.
state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County.
