Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	90/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	B+
The Guardian
The Independent
Los Angeles Times
NME	8/10
Pitchfork Media	9.2/10
Rolling Stone
Spin	A−
The Village Voice	A−

Illinois (styled Sufjan Stevens Invites You To: Come On Feel the Illinoise on the cover; sometimes written as Illinoise) is a 2005 concept album by American indie folk songwriter Sufjan Stevens. It is his fifth studio album, and features songs referencing places, events, and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois. Illinois is Stevens' second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan that Stevens has since acknowledged was a gag.

Stevens recorded and produced the album at multiple venues in New York City using low-fidelity studio equipment and a variety of instruments between late 2004 and early 2005. The artwork and lyrics explore the history, culture, art, and geography of the state—Stevens developed them after analyzing criminal, literary, and historical documents. Following a July 4, 2005 release date, Stevens promoted Illinois with a world tour.

Critics praised the album for its well-written lyrics and complex orchestrations; in particular, reviewers noted Stevens' progress as a songwriter since the release of Michigan. Illinois was named the best-reviewed album of 2005 by review aggregator Metacritic, and was included on several reviewers' "best of the decade" lists—including those of Paste, NPR, and Rolling Stone. The album amounted to Stevens' greatest public success to date: it was his first to place on the Billboard 200, and it topped the Billboard list of "Heatseekers Albums". The varied instrumentation and experimental songwriting on the album invoked comparisons to work by Steve Reich, Neil Young, and The Cure. Besides numerous references to Illinois history, geography, and attractions, Stevens continued a theme of his songwriting career by including multiple references to his Christian faith.

Stevens launched his 50-state project in 2003 with the album Michigan and chose to focus on Illinois with this recording because "it wasn't a great leap", and he liked the state because he considered it the "center of gravity" for the American Midwest. Before creating the album, Stevens read literature by Illinois authors Saul Bellow and Carl Sandburg, and studied immigration records and history books for the state—he made the deliberate decision to avoid current events and focused on historical themes. He also took trips through several locations in Illinois and asked friends and members of Internet chat rooms for anecdotes about their experiences in the state. Although he began work in 2004 on Oregon-themed songs and briefly considered releasing a Rhode Island 7", Stevens has since not released another album focused on a state, saying in a November 2009 interview with Paste that "the whole premise was such a joke," and telling Andrew Purcell of The Guardian in October 2009 "I have no qualms about admitting [the fifty states project] was a promotional gimmick." An Arkansas-related song was released through NPR as "The Lord God Bird" and material intended for New Jersey and New York became The BQE.

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