Pekin is a medium-sized city located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 33,840 people and 11 constituent neighborhoods, Pekin is the 58th largest community in Illinois.

Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Pekin is neither predominently one or the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Pekin is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Pekin who work in office and administrative support jobs (17.72%), sales jobs (11.94%), and management occupations (6.57%).

One notable thing about Pekin is that if you need to go anywhere, you're going to have to drive. This is because Pekin is primarily built for cars, and if you drive around you will notice that there are lots of shopping centers, parking lots, strip malls, and wide streets. Commuting to work is done by car: 97.2% of people use private automobiles to get to and from work. Sidewalks? Not so much. In fact, trying to walk in certain parts of town may be a dangerous enterprise.

Pekin has public transportation that is used by many people for their daily commute to and from work: primarily, this consists of people taking the bus.

Pekin Information and Demographics

The citizens of Pekin are slightly less educated than the national average of 14.96% for the average city or town: 13.41% of adults in Pekin have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.

The per capita income in Pekin in 2000 was $19,616, which is middle income relative to Illinois, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $78,464 for a family of four.

The people who call Pekin home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Pekin is White, followed by African-American. Important ancestries of people in Pekin include German, English, Irish, Italian, and French.

The most common language spoken in Pekin is English.