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Illinois towns
Illinois Hunting Towns
258 Illinois towns measured to the public hunting land within 10 and 25 miles, with their county deer and turkey rules, IDNR districts and nearest CWD stations.
Photo: TheCatalyst31 (CC0 1.0)
How each Illinois town is measured
Each Illinois town page starts at the town's Census point and measures out to the mapped point of every state fish and wildlife area, state park, habitat area, forest, national wildlife refuge, Corps lake project and national forest district on this site. The 258 towns are the 102 county seats, 68 other places of 25,000 or more, and 88 base towns picked as the nearest place to a large public site or a federal unit; 12 of them are unincorporated Census places.
The median town has 1 listed public places within 10 miles and about 1,314 acres in their site records, and 82 towns have none inside that ring. The acreage is the size printed in each site record, so it is a rough indicator and not a surveyed area, and closed natural areas and historic sites are never counted.
Illinois has no hunting units: IDNR sets deer permits, the firearm closure in Cook, DuPage, Lake and east Kane, CWD rules and spring turkey zones by county, so each page gives the town's county rule row, the leftover permits after Lottery 3, county harvest, the district biologist and the nearest CWD head drop-off station. Waterfowl and upland zones are drawn along roads, so no page places a town in one.
Illinois's largest cities as hunting bases
Chicago, Joliet, Rockford, Springfield, Peoria and Champaign are the biggest places on this launch list; each page shows how far the nearest open public ground lies and what the county rules say.
Illinois hunting towns by IDNR region
IDNR's public hunting fact sheets group counties into five regions; each town is filed under the region of its county, and eleven counties that no list names take the region most of their neighbours are in.
Northwest region, 51 towns
- Aledo
- Apple Canyon Lake
- Belvidere
- Brimfield
- Cambridge
- De Pue
- DeKalb
- Dixon
- Dunfermline
- Erie
- Eureka
- Freeport
- Galena
- Galesburg
- Glasford
- Hanover
- Hennepin
- Heritage Lake
- Hopewell
- Illinois City
- Keithsburg
- Lacon
- Lewistown
- Lost Nation
- Loves Park
- Macomb
- Marseilles
- Moline
- Monmouth
- Morrison
- Mount Carroll
- New Boston
- North Pekin
- North Utica
- Oak Run
- Oglesby
- Ohio
- Oquawka
- Oregon
- Ottawa
- Pekin
- Peoria
- Princeton
- Rock Island
- Rockford
- Rome
- Savanna
- Sycamore
- Thomson
- Toulon
- Victoria
Northeast region, 83 towns
- Addison
- Algonquin
- Arlington Heights
- Aurora
- Bartlett
- Batavia
- Berwyn
- Bolingbrook
- Braceville
- Buffalo Grove
- Burbank
- Calumet City
- Carbon Hill
- Carol Stream
- Carpentersville
- Chicago
- Chicago Heights
- Cicero
- Crystal Lake
- Des Plaines
- Downers Grove
- Elgin
- Elk Grove Village
- Elmhurst
- Elwood
- Evanston
- Fox Lake
- Geneva
- Glen Ellyn
- Glendale Heights
- Glenview
- Gurnee
- Hanover Park
- Hebron
- Highland Park
- Hoffman Estates
- Hopkins Park
- Huntley
- Joliet
- Kankakee
- Lake in the Hills
- Lakemoor
- Lansing
- Limestone
- Lockport
- Lombard
- Lorenzo
- McHenry
- Millbrook
- Morris
- Mount Prospect
- Mundelein
- Naperville
- New Lenox
- Niles
- North Chicago
- Northbrook
- Oak Forest
- Oak Lawn
- Oak Park
- Orland Park
- Oswego
- Palatine
- Park Ridge
- Plainfield
- Richmond
- Romeoville
- Round Lake Beach
- Schaumburg
- Skokie
- St. Charles
- Streamwood
- Tinley Park
- Vernon Hills
- Waukegan
- West Chicago
- Wheaton
- Wheeling
- Wilmette
- Wilmington, Will County
- Woodridge
- Woodstock
- Yorkville
East Central region, 27 towns
- Beaverville
- Bethany
- Bloomington
- Champaign
- Charleston
- Clinton
- Danville
- Decatur
- Findlay
- Georgetown
- Le Roy
- Marshall
- Monticello
- Normal
- Oakwood
- Paris
- Paxton
- Pontiac
- Potomac
- Shelbyville
- Sullivan
- Toledo
- Tuscola
- Urbana
- Watseka
- Weldon
- Windsor, Shelby County
West Central region, 48 towns
- Baldwin
- Bath
- Belleville
- Carlinville
- Carlyle
- Carrollton
- Carthage
- Chandlerville
- Chester
- Coffeen
- Edwardsville
- Goofy Ridge
- Grafton
- Granite City
- Greenville
- Griggsville
- Hardin
- Havana
- Hillsboro
- Jacksonville
- Jerseyville
- Kampsville
- Keyesport
- Kingston, Adams County
- Lincoln
- Manito
- Meyer
- Mount Sterling
- Nashville
- Nebo
- New Athens
- O'Fallon
- Petersburg
- Pittsfield
- Pleasant Hill
- Pontoon Beach
- Quincy
- Ramsey
- Rushville
- Springfield
- Taylorville
- Tovey
- Ursa
- Vandalia
- Virginia
- Warsaw
- Waterloo
- Winchester
South region, 49 towns
- Albion
- Alto Pass
- Benton
- Bonnie
- Cairo
- Carmi
- Carrier Mills
- Crainville
- Dongola
- East Cape Girardeau
- Effingham
- Elizabethtown
- Enfield
- Equality
- Fairfield
- Flat Rock
- Golconda
- Goreville
- Grand Tower
- Harrisburg
- Harrison
- Hurst
- Hutsonville
- Ina
- Jonesboro
- Joppa
- Karnak
- Kinmundy
- Lawrenceville
- Louisville
- Makanda
- Marion
- McLeansboro
- Metropolis
- Mound City
- Mount Carmel
- Mount Vernon
- Murphysboro
- Newton
- Noble
- Olney
- Pinckneyville
- Robinson
- Salem
- Shawneetown
- St. Francisville
- Ullin
- Unity
- Vienna
All 258 Illinois towns, county by county
Towns, points and populations from the Census 2024 Gazetteer and Vintage 2024 estimates; public land rings and listed acres from places.json and lands.json. “Closest open land” skips records with an access caution (refuges, Corps projects, programs and records with no open season listed). Checked November 13, 2026.
Illinois hunting towns on the map
A bold pin flags a town with at least 10,000 listed acres of public ground inside 10 miles; tap any pin for that town.
Illinois towns with the most public land within 10 miles
Shawneetown leads with 287,498 listed acres inside 10 miles; base towns beside the big fish and wildlife areas, forests and refuges fill the rest of the top twelve.
| Town | County | Acres within 10 mi | Places within 10 mi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shawneetown | Gallatin | 287,498 | 3 |
| Elizabethtown | Hardin | 286,991 | 4 |
| Makanda | Jackson | 164,722 | 5 |
| Alto Pass | Union | 129,773 | 8 |
| Grand Tower | Jackson | 121,736 | 4 |
| Crainville | Williamson | 48,923 | 2 |
| Marion | Williamson | 44,415 | 1 |
| Lorenzo | Will | 38,124 | 8 |
| Wilmington, Will County | Will | 38,124 | 8 |
| Savanna | Carroll | 34,993 | 4 |
| Karnak | Pulaski | 34,443 | 5 |
| Dongola | Union | 33,230 | 3 |
Illinois town pages, explained
How were the towns for these pages chosen?
All 102 county seats, every other incorporated place of 25,000 or more, and base towns for the largest public sites and federal units: 258 in all.
What is measured between a town and the land?
Miles as the crow flies from the Census point of each town to the mapped point of each public site. Driving distance runs longer.
Why do some towns list refuges or Corps lakes with a caution?
Refuges open only their designated hunt units under 50 CFR 32.32, and the Corps pages we read give no hunting statement, so they are never shown as plain open ground.
Are the acreages official?
No. They add up the sizes printed in each site record, so they are rough indicators and not surveyed areas.
Why does each town page show county rules?
Illinois has no hunting units; IDNR sets deer permits, the firearm closure, CWD rules and spring turkey zones by county, so the county row is the rule that applies in town.
Is there harvest data for one town alone?
No. IDNR publishes harvest by county only, so each town page gives its county totals and labels them that way.
Do the pages place a town in a duck or goose zone?
No. IDNR draws the North, Central and South waterfowl zones along roads, with no county list, so each page points to the road line instead.
Are the season dates for 2027?
Deer, waterfowl and upland rows are the 2026-27 dates; spring turkey rows are the 2027 dates IDNR has already printed, and the next Digest is not out yet.
From places.json, lands.json, counties.json, services.json and the 2026-27 Illinois Hunting and Trapping Digest. Checked November 13, 2026.
More Illinois hunt planning
Other photos on this page: David Wilson (CC BY 2.0); Gary Todd (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Nyttend (Public domain); Thank You (25 Millions ) views (CC BY 2.0); Gorup de Besanez (CC BY-SA 4.0); Mobilus In Mobili (CC BY-SA 2.0).