Illinois counties

Thirty-three Illinois counties have already said yes to the same question — and seven more are about to ask their voters the same thing this November.

Nearly one-third of Illinois' 102 counties have voted to secede from the state over the last few years, and now the state of Indiana has expressed serious interest in absorbing those counties into Indiana. Illinois' governor says it's not going to happen, but others feel quite differently.

Multiple Illinois counties have made no secret about wanting to leave the state of Illinois, even going so far as to hold votes on the idea of secession. For anyone who's ever wondered where a county could go after deciding to leave Illinois--Indiana might be the spot.

This sort of movement is not a new phenomenon in the state of Illinois. As a matter of fact, since 2000, over 25 percent of Illinois' 102 counties have explored seceding to form a new state, or leaving Illinois to join another state like Missouri.

In a ranking of 3,140 counties across the United States, nineteen counties in Illinois made it into the top 500 healthiest counties in the country, and 3 of them made the top 100. Any guesses on which Illinois counties are making the rest of them look bad?

Illinois is 2nd in the nation in something called "outbound migration," which is just a fancy way of saying "people bolting from your state." While not every single county in Illinois is in a population freefall, these 10, which include counties you're very familiar with, most certainly are.

A lack of job opportunities and access to education are just a few of the factors that make these counties the poorest in Illinois.

Winnebago County is the 7th largest county in Illinois by population, with 283,366 residents, Boone County is 25th, with 53,304 people. Ogle County is 28th with 51,446 residents.

Spoiler alert: It's not Winnebago, Boone, and/or Ogle counties that are looking to leave the state of Illinois, although at one time Winnebago County, Jo Daviess County, Stephenson County, and Boone County all tried to remove themselves from the master list of Illinois counties.

Many of us here in Northern Illinois may be giving our (at this point) substantial mask collections the old heave-ho, but not everyone in the state of Illinois is doing the mask-toss just yet.