Pekin () is a city in and the county seat of Tazewell County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located on the Illinois River, Pekin is the largest city of Tazewell County and the second most populous municipality of the Peoria metropolitan area, after Peoria itself. As of the 2020 census, its population is 31,731. A small portion of the city limits extend into Peoria County. It is a suburb of Peoria and is part of the Peoria Metropolitan Statistical Area. Pekin's Mineral Springs Park is near Pekin Hospital and the Miller Senior Center. The city is the location of a high-rise residential facility of the United Auto Workers; the location of the Pekin Federal Correctional Institution; and the headquarters of a regional insurance company, Pekin Insurance. History Origins of Pekin Farmer Jonathan Tharp, who came from Ohio, was the first non-native American resident of what would become Pekin, building a log cabin in 1824 on a ridge above the Illinois River at a site near the present foot of Broadway Drive. Franklin School was later erected near this site. Other settlers soon joined him, including his father Jacob Tharp who arrived from Ohio in 1825. They lived near Chief Shabbona's large Indian village of about 100 wigwams, populated primarily by Pottawatomi, which was situated along Gravel Ridge, on the eastern shore of what is today Pekin Lake in northwest Pekin. The county surveyor, William Hodge, measured and laid out a “town site” in 1827. In 1829, the plat was taken to Springfield and auctioned; the town site was awarded to Major Isaac Perkins, Gideon Hawley, William Haines and Major Nathan Cromwell. Major Cromwell’s wife, Mrs. Ann Eliza Cromwell, selected the name of Pekin. It has been stated that Mrs. Cromwell named the town "Pekin" because she thought Peking was on the exact opposite side of the world from the town she founded. In the 1800s, China and the United States were thought to be antipodes- or locations that were exactly opposite of each other on the globe. As such, towns were sometimes named after their supposedly antipodal locations. Another example is Canton, Ohio. "Peking" was often romanized as "Pekin", as in other towns founded during the 1800s (such as Pekin, Ohio). Nathan Cromwell named many of the city streets after the wives and daughters of early Pekin settlers. It was long held, as first expressed by W.H. Bates in