Urbana is notable for sharing the main campus of the University of Illinois with its twin city of Champaign.

[4] Urbana suffered a setback when the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad, which had been expected to pass through town, was instead laid down two miles west, where the land was flatter.

The town of West Urbana grew up around the train depot built there in 1854; further, in 1861 its name was changed to Champaign.

[5] Champaign-Urbana was selected as the site for a new state agricultural school, thanks to the efforts of Clark Griggs.

Together, these two cities are often referred to as Urbana-Champaign (the designation used by the university) or Champaign-Urbana (the more common usage, due to the larger size of Champaign).

This neighborhood consists of Grant Place and adjacent properties on Fairlawn and Eastern Drives.

It is called Candlestick Lane because every year the residents decorate their yards for Christmas with a lot of lights and figures.

The City of Urbana installs special red and green street signs, reading "Candlestick Lane" and "Grant Place" during the Holiday season.

The Urbana Business Association is now responsible for the planning of the festival, over the years adding a local car show, an expanded family area, live music on multiple stages, food, vendors, beer, in the heart of downtown Urbana.

In addition to corn and beverages, the festival has offered a range of activities and events, including a display of antique and other collectors' cars and volksmarches, arts events, a dog show, and a book sale organized by the Friends of the Urbana Free Library.

The hotel was designed by famed Urbana architect Joseph Royer in 1923 and opened several rooms on November 1, 1923, to accommodate guests for the university's Homecoming game.

Around the prairie restoration center of the park loops three miles of wide concrete path suitable for walking, running, and bicycling.

In addition, for an off the beaten path experience, the park offers two miles of unpaved trails which wind through the prairie grass.

Several small hills make the path unsuitable for inexperienced inline skaters.

[27] The "Art in the Park",[28] just north of the Urbana City Hall (400 S. Vine St.) dedicated October 2012, took 22 years of struggle and efforts of three mayors.

It was closed after the summer 2008 season due to deteriorating conditions and concomitant safety issues, it was rebuilt and reopened in 2013.

Campus Recreation Center East (CRCE) has an indoor leisure pool with a hot tub.

[33] The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign fields ten men and eleven women varsity sports.

Urbana has been home to several separate minor league baseball clubs in conjunction with Champagin.

The Champaign-Urbana Colts played in the Central Illinois Collegiate League from 1990 until the team folded in 1996.

The architecture is of the Tudor style defined primarily by the towers over the main entrance and flattened point arches over the doors.

[40] The Elementary schools in Urbana are Leal, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Preston L. Williams Jr., Thomas Paine, and Yankee Ridge.

[45] Local History Online gives access to holdings (books and journals, Champaign County records, City of Urbana municipal records, newspapers, directories, school yearbooks, images, maps, oral histories, local organization newsletters, and other special collections) of the Champaign County Historical Archives, including digital content.

The line now operated by Norfolk Southern is the former Peoria & Eastern Railway, later operated as part of the Big Four (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway), New York Central, Penn Central, and Conrail systems, being sold by Conrail to Norfolk Southern in 1996.

This short-lived entity became part of the Indianapolis, Bloomington and Western Railway before the railroad was completed.

In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Urbana was named as the location where the HAL 9000 computer of the ill-fated Discovery Mission to Jupiter was programmed.

Urbana provides the setting for Bert I. Gordon's 1957 science fiction film, Beginning of the End.

Parodied on the television program, Mystery Science Theater 3000, this movie features the unintentional creation of dangerous, giant grasshoppers as a result of agricultural research gone awry.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign English Professor and National Book Award winner Richard Powers set his novel Galatea 2.2 at the multidisciplinary Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

The one-year Sino-African Initiative grant is for up to $100,000 and will involve a collaborative effort to improve the municipal waste disposal system in Zomba, a city of 88,000 in southeast Africa.