List of governors of Illinois
head of the executive branch of the state government of the state of Illinois
The governor of Illinois is the head of government of the U.S. state of Illinois. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Illinois's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Illinois Legislature, to convene the legislature, and to grant pardons, except in cases of impeachment. The governor is also the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces.
Since becoming a state in 1818, 43 people have served as governor of Illinois; before statehood, it had only one territorial governor, Ninian Edwards. The longest-serving governor was James R. Thompson, who was elected to four terms lasting 14 years, from 1977 to 1991. Only one governor, Richard J. Oglesby, has served multiple non-consecutive terms, having been elected in 1864, 1872, and 1884.
The current governor is J. B. Pritzker, who took office on January 14, 2019.
List of governors
Territory of Illinois
Illinois Territory was formed on March 1, 1809, from Indiana Territory. It had only two governors appointed by the president of the United States before it became a state, and only one ever took office.
“List of governors of Illinois” enters the record as head of the executive branch of the state government of the state of Illinois. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what List, governors and Illinois can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q878602. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1818, 1977, 1991 and 1864.
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This entry incorporates text from “List of governors of Illinois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.