Belleville is a city and the county seat of St. Clair County, Illinois, coterminous with the now defunct Belleville Township. It is located within Greater St. Louis and is the seventh-largest municipality in the 15-county metropolitan area. It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. The population was 44,478 according to the Census Bureau's 2010 data, making it the largest city in the state south of Springfield. Belleville is a major southeastern suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Belleville is the eighth-most populated city in the state outside the Chicago metropolitan area, and the most-populated city in southern Illinois and in the Metro-East region of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area. Due to its proximity to Scott Air Force Base, the population receives a boost from military and federal civilian personnel, defense contractors, and military retirees. History George Blair named the city of Belleville in 1814. Because Blair donated an acre of his land for the town square and an additional adjoining the square for the new county seat, the legislature transferred the county seat from the village of Cahokia. The latter had been established by French colonists as a mission village in the late 17th century. Belleville was incorporated as a village in 1819, and became a city in 1850. It is said that Blair originally named the city Bellville in honor of Tennessee politician John Bell. In 1863, the name was officially changed to Belleville to distance the city from the now-disgraced Confederate. Major immigration in the mid-19th century to this area occurred following revolutions in Germany, and most of the European-American population is of German ancestry. Many of the educated Germans fled their homeland after the failure of the German Revolution in 1848. Belleville was the center of the first important German settlement in Illinois. By 1870, an estimated 90% of the city's population was either German-born or of German descent. After the Civil War, Belleville became a manufacturing center producing nails, printing presses, gray iron castings, agricultural equipment, and stoves. Belleville became known as "The Stove Capital of the World." The first brewery in Illinois was established in Belleville. In 1868, Gustav Goelitz founded the candy company that is known today as "Jelly Belly." An immense deposit () of bituminous coal was found in St. Clair County. By 1874, some farmers had become coal