Which Chicago Neighborhoods Are Split Across Wards?

Mapping Chicago community areas where representation is divided across multiple wards

Author

Jack Landry

Published

June 25, 2026

Summary

  • Eighteen of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods are split across multiple City Council wards.
  • More than a third of Chicago residents live in a neighborhood where no single ward represents a majority of residents.
  • After controlling for population size, split neighborhoods have lower incomes, higher poverty rates, and larger Black and Hispanic population shares than non-split neighborhoods.

Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood is widely known for being split across six different City Council wards. Without one elected representative to advocate on behalf of the entire community, many residents argue that Englewood’s needs are shortchanged by the city.

While Englewood’s situation is particularly notable, it is not the only Chicago neighborhood split across multiple wards. The map below overlays Chicago’s ward boundaries with neighborhoods in which no single ward represents more than 50% of residents.1 In total, eighteen Chicago neighborhoods are split this way, accounting for more than a third of the city’s population. These splits are concentrated around a handful of South Side neighborhoods, as well as downtown and the Northwest Side corridor.

Characteristics of Neighborhoods Split Across Multiple Wards

Englewood has historically been one of Chicago’s poorest predominantly Black neighborhoods. Are other neighborhoods split across multiple wards also lower-income than neighborhoods with more unified ward representation? At first glance, the answer appears to be no. Split neighborhoods have median household incomes and racial demographics that look very similar to those of non-split neighborhoods.

However, one striking difference between split and non-split neighborhoods is their population size. Split neighborhoods are much larger, and larger neighborhoods are harder to fit within a single ward.

Metric Population-weighted average in split neighborhoods Population-weighted average in non-split neighborhoods Population-weighted difference
Black Share 25.2% 27.9% -2.7%
Hispanic Share 34.0% 28.1% 5.9%
Nonwhite Share 68.9% 67.2% 1.7%
Median Household Income $91,161 $84,367 $6,794
Poverty Rate 16.9% 16.5% 0.4%
Bachelor’s Degree or Higher 43.5% 41.7% 1.7%
Unemployment Rate 8.2% 8.8% -0.6%
Population 69,379 43,843 25,537

To make a more apples-to-apples comparison, the second table controls for neighborhood population size. In other words, it compares split and non-split neighborhoods of the same population size. Once we make that adjustment, split neighborhoods have larger Black and Hispanic population shares than non-split neighborhoods. They also have lower incomes, as well as higher poverty and unemployment rates.

When higher-income, predominantly white neighborhoods are split across wards, it is generally because they are very large, which makes them difficult to fit within a single ward. By contrast, lower-income, predominantly Black or Hispanic split neighborhoods are not especially large; alternative ward boundaries would not necessarily struggle to keep these neighborhoods mostly represented by one alderperson.

Metric Average in split neighborhoods, controlling for neighborhood population size Average in non-split neighborhoods, controlling for neighborhood population size Difference, controlling for neighborhood population size
Black Share 42.4% 33.0% 9.3%
Hispanic Share 32.7% 27.1% 5.5%
Nonwhite Share 82.4% 70.9% 11.5%
Median Household Income $72,963 $81,483 -$8,520
Poverty Rate 22.9% 17.4% 5.5%
Bachelor’s Degree or Higher 31.2% 38.7% -7.5%
Unemployment Rate 11.7% 9.6% 2.1%

Neighborhoods Where No Ward Holds a Majority

Neighborhood Population Ward shares of neighborhood population
Austin 123,151 29 (46%); 37 (41%); 28 (11%); 24 (1%)
Belmont Cragin 72,088 31 (41%); 36 (25%); 30 (24%); 26 (10%)
Chicago Lawn 54,409 16 (31%); 14 (22%); 15 (20%); 18 (13%); 17 (12%); 23 (1%)
East Garfield Park 20,731 28 (50%); 27 (27%); 24 (23%)
Englewood 23,195 16 (48%); 6 (26%); 20 (14%); 17 (12%)
Garfield Ridge 45,158 23 (49%); 13 (31%); 22 (18%); 14 (3%)
Hermosa 22,576 31 (45%); 26 (30%); 35 (26%)
Humboldt Park 56,138 26 (40%); 37 (25%); 27 (23%); 36 (12%)
Irving Park 53,332 33 (42%); 30 (23%); 39 (18%); 35 (10%); 45 (7%)
Logan Square 71,207 35 (37%); 1 (31%); 32 (19%); 26 (14%)
Loop 42,550 34 (40%); 42 (34%); 4 (27%)
Near North Side 107,331 2 (47%); 42 (37%); 27 (11%); 43 (5%)
Near West Side 68,165 34 (47%); 28 (24%); 27 (23%); 25 (6%)
New City (Back of the Yards) 40,065 15 (45%); 20 (27%); 16 (22%); 11 (5%); 12 (1%)
Portage Park 63,094 38 (32%); 30 (28%); 45 (27%); 31 (12%); 41 (2%)
South Shore 53,588 7 (46%); 5 (37%); 8 (17%)
West Englewood 28,144 16 (45%); 17 (36%); 15 (19%)
West Town 88,164 1 (40%); 36 (25%); 27 (13%); 26 (13%); 32 (8%)

Footnotes

  1. To map neighborhoods, we use Chicago’s canonical 77 community areas.↩︎