Vienna, Illinois

Vienna, pronounced VY-enna by locals, is the seat of Johnson County in far southern Illinois, a region so geographically and culturally distinct from Chicago that locals sometimes call it 'Little Egypt.' The county seat was established in eighteen eighteen, the same year Illinois became a state, and Vienna has governed this quiet corner of the state ever since. The area around Vienna is unusual in Illinois for its hilly, forested terrain, shaped by the same geology that created the Shawnee National Forest just to the north. Johnson County is notable for being one of the least populous counties in Illinois, a quiet holdout of Appalachian-influenced culture in a state defined in the popular imagination by Chicago and flat cornfields.