Illinois has 6,918 local government units. This is the largest amount of the 50 states even though Illinois is neither the largest state in population nor landmass. Illinois has the sixth-largest population and is the 25th largest in size. California, which has the largest population, has 2,474 fewer local governments than Illinois. Texas is the second-largest state both in size and population but has 1,575 fewer local governments than Illinois. New York, which is the fourth most populated state, has 3,450 local governments or 3,000 fewer than Illinois. Wisconsin, Illinois’ neighbor to the north, has fewer than half the number of local governments at 3,096.

Sixty-one percent of Illinois’ residents live under three layers of local government, while in 40 other states, residents are never under more than two layers. This means that Illinois’ taxpayers are responsible for multiple, redundant governments. This is one contributing factor to Illinois being a high-tax state. Illinois is currently $233.9 billion in debt.

See the full chart here.