Southwest Suburbs Of Chicago: Map And List Of 31 Towns

Thirty-one towns sit on or near the two Metra lines that run southwest from Union Station, the SouthWest Service and the Heritage Corridor. The Heritage Corridor runs three weekday trains toward downtown, all of them arriving in the morning; the SouthWest Service runs 14 or 15 as far as Orland Park and five beyond it.

Metra’s weekday timetable and the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey · read October 19, 2026

Together the 31 towns hold about 700,000 people. Thirteen have a station on one of the two lines; the other 18 are towns whose closest Metra station is one of those. In the towns with a station, median home values run from $215,000 in Worth to $468,800 in Lemont. This is the fourth of our suburb lists, after the west, northwest and south suburbs, and it follows the same rule: start from the railroad.

Map of the southwest suburbs of Chicago

The southwest suburbs, by railroad. Green: SouthWest Service. Purple: Heritage Corridor. White circles are suburban stations. Filled dots are the 13 towns with a station; hollow dots are the 18 towns without one. Track and stations from Metra’s schedule feed; town points from the Census Bureau’s 2024 gazetteer.

What are the southwest suburbs of Chicago?

No official map draws the line, so this list uses the railroad: the two Metra lines that leave Union Station for the southwest. The SouthWest Service runs through Oak Lawn and the Palos towns to Orland Park, and a few trains go on to Manhattan. The Heritage Corridor follows the Des Plaines River valley through Summit, Lemont and Lockport to Joliet. A town is on this list if it has a station on either line, or if it is an incorporated town in Cook, Will or DuPage County whose closest Metra station, in a straight line, is a suburban station on one of them and no more than 8 miles away.

That rule settles the edges. Tinley Park, Oak Forest and Mokena ride the Rock Island and are on the south list. Countryside, La Grange, Darien and Woodridge are closest to stations on the BNSF, the line our west list follows. Evergreen Park and Hometown are left out because their closest station, Ashburn, is inside the city, and Plainfield and Channahon because no Metra station is within eight miles. Four towns sit where the corridors meet and appear on both lists: Joliet, the end of the Heritage Corridor and of the Rock Island; New Lenox, with a Rock Island station and the SouthWest Service’s Laraway Road; and Rockdale and Shorewood, whose closest station is Joliet’s. Homer Glen counts by the Orland Park 179th Street station, which stands on unincorporated land.

List of southwest suburbs by Metra line

SouthWest Service Metra stations

The SouthWest Service runs from Union Station to Orland Park, with a few trains continuing to Manhattan. Seven towns, nearest downtown first. Worth holds two stations, Worth and Palos Heights, and Palos Heights itself has none inside its limits.

SouthWest Service station towns. Census 2020–2024 five-year estimates. * Margin of error above a quarter of the estimate; — no estimate
Town	Population	Median home value	Median household income	Median rent
Oak Lawn	56,861	$281,200	$83,911	$1,335
Chicago Ridge	14,099	$226,900	$68,964	$1,304
Worth	10,700	$215,000	$56,288	$1,169
Palos Park	4,816	$464,700	$121,696	—
Orland Park	57,916	$367,200	$98,910	$1,440
New Lenox	28,006	$399,900	$140,865	$1,431
Manhattan	11,026	$332,600	$128,522	$1,213

Heritage Corridor Metra stations

The Heritage Corridor runs from Union Station to Joliet. Six towns, nearest downtown first.

Heritage Corridor station towns. Census 2020–2024 five-year estimates. * Margin of error above a quarter of the estimate; — no estimate
Town	Population	Median home value	Median household income	Median rent
Summit	10,846	$232,600	$61,863	$1,137
Willow Springs	5,868	$378,300	$103,583	$1,463*
Lemont	17,820	$468,800	$123,370	$1,209*
Romeoville	41,152	$257,100	$106,325	$1,886
Lockport	26,409	$316,000	$111,981	$1,525
Joliet	150,445	$265,800	$92,201	$1,276

How often do SouthWest Service and Heritage Corridor trains run?

Here the two lines part ways. Every Heritage Corridor station has three weekday trains toward downtown, and all three reach Union Station between 6 and 9:30 in the morning, so there is no midday or evening train toward downtown. The SouthWest Service has 14 or 15 weekday trains toward downtown at each station through Orland Park, and five at Laraway Road and Manhattan, where the line goes on past Orland Park.

The table gives Metra’s schedule for one station in each station town, the one with the most weekday trains toward downtown, and the scheduled ride on trains reaching Union Station between 6 and 9:30 a.m. The typical ride is the median of those trains; the fastest is the quickest. The quickest typical ride is 29 minutes, from Summit; the longest 81, from Manhattan.

Scheduled, from Metra’s weekday timetable as posted in October 2026. SouthWest Service towns first, then Heritage Corridor, each nearest downtown first. Joliet’s Rock Island trains are on the south list
Town	Station	Weekday trains toward downtown	Typical morning ride	Fastest morning ride
Oak Lawn	Oak Lawn Patriot	15	38 min	33 min
Chicago Ridge	Chicago Ridge	14	42 min	42 min
Worth	Worth (other stations in town: Palos Heights)	14	45 min	45 min
Palos Park	Palos Park	15	51 min	41 min
Orland Park	Orland Park 143rd (other stations in town: Orland Park 153rd)	15	55 min	45 min
New Lenox	Laraway Road	5	74 min	64 min
Manhattan	Manhattan	5	81 min	71 min
Summit	Summit	3	29 min	27 min
Willow Springs	Willow Springs	3	37 min	36 min
Lemont	Lemont	3	46 min	46 min
Romeoville	Romeoville	3	54 min	54 min
Lockport	Lockport	3	60 min	60 min
Joliet	Joliet	3	67 min	67 min

Which towns have no station of their own?

These 18 towns qualify by their closest station. The largest is Bolingbrook (74,096 people), closest to the Romeoville station, 4.5 miles away; Burbank (28,739) and Homer Glen (24,529) come next. Distances are straight lines from the Census Bureau’s internal point for each town to the station; a drive is longer.

Corridor towns, alphabetical. Census 2020–2024 five-year estimates. * Margin of error above a quarter of the estimate; — no estimate
Town	Population	Median home value	Median household income	Median rent	Closest Metra station
Bedford Park	586	$271,700	$99,000*	$1,841*	Summit (Heritage Corridor), 2.7 mi
Bolingbrook	74,096	$314,700	$108,400	$1,749	Romeoville (Heritage Corridor), 4.5 mi
Bridgeview	16,849	$236,400	$66,655	$1,177	Chicago Ridge (SouthWest Service), 2.9 mi
Burbank	28,739	$275,700	$80,116	$1,265	Oak Lawn Patriot (SouthWest Service), 2.0 mi
Burr Ridge	11,141	$700,400	$156,829*	$3,500+	Willow Springs (Heritage Corridor), 2.4 mi
Crest Hill	20,628	$232,900	$73,033	$1,481	Lockport (Heritage Corridor), 2.8 mi
Elwood	2,001	$237,500	$86,458	$1,201*	Manhattan (SouthWest Service), 6.6 mi
Hickory Hills	14,526	$288,000	$77,262	$1,145	Willow Springs (Heritage Corridor), 2.7 mi
Hodgkins	1,597	$45,800*	$62,417*	$1,050	Willow Springs (Heritage Corridor), 2.4 mi
Homer Glen	24,529	$418,800	$136,678	$1,861	Orland Park 179th (SouthWest Service), 3.8 mi
Indian Head Park	3,974	$356,600	$100,149	$1,746	Willow Springs (Heritage Corridor), 2.6 mi
Justice	12,324	$238,400	$57,170	$1,247	Willow Springs (Heritage Corridor), 3.0 mi
Orland Hills	6,719	$280,300	$122,039	$1,359	Orland Park 153rd (SouthWest Service), 2.1 mi
Palos Heights	12,152	$367,100	$108,740	$2,558*	Palos Park (SouthWest Service), 1.3 mi
Palos Hills	18,081	$279,200	$83,533	$1,269	Palos Heights (SouthWest Service), 1.6 mi
Rockdale	2,553	$188,300	$59,135	$1,256	Joliet (Heritage Corridor), 2.7 mi
Shorewood	18,343	$337,800	$122,105	$1,479*	Joliet (Heritage Corridor), 7.0 mi
Symerton	132	$233,300*	$103,542*	—	Manhattan (SouthWest Service), 7.2 mi

Where are home values lowest and highest?

Among the 13 station towns, the median home value is lowest in Worth ($215,000) and highest in Lemont ($468,800). Counting the towns without a station, the range runs from Hodgkins, where the estimate of $45,800 carries a wide margin, to Burr Ridge, at $700,400. The middle value across all 31 towns is $280,300, well above the $185,000 of the south list.

Where along each line does the price peak? In the middle. On the Heritage Corridor the station towns climb from Summit ($232,600) through Willow Springs ($378,300) to Lemont ($468,800), and every station town past Lemont is lower: Romeoville $257,100, Lockport $316,000, Joliet $265,800. On the SouthWest Service the low point is the inner stretch, Chicago Ridge ($226,900) and Worth ($215,000), and the high point Palos Park ($464,700), with Orland Park ($367,200) and New Lenox ($399,900) beyond it.

Our reading: the southwest lines share one pattern with the south lines, where the towns nearest the city line are the least expensive station towns. They differ at the far end: past Lemont and Palos Park the medians come down. And on one of the two lines the timetable is as much a part of the comparison as the price, since a Heritage Corridor town has three trains a day toward downtown and a SouthWest Service town 14 or 15. These figures describe whole towns, though, and a single town can hold very different blocks.

What do renters pay?

Median gross rent, rent plus the utilities a tenant pays, is lowest in Hodgkins ($1,050) and highest in Burr Ridge, where the Census reports it only as $3,500 or more. Palos Park and Symerton have no rent estimate in the Census file. Across the towns with an estimate the middle value is $1,335 a month.

What this list can’t tell you

On the recordWhich towns have a SouthWest Service or Heritage Corridor station and, at the station in each town with the most trains, how many weekday trains run toward downtown and the scheduled morning ride. From Metra’s timetable feed.
On the recordEach town’s population, median home value, household income and rent, as Census five-year estimates.
Not establishedWhat any one home costs now. The home value is what owners told the survey their homes were worth, pooled over 2020 to 2024, and it trails the market.
Not establishedWhether trains run on time, or how full they are. The ride times are the timetable’s.
Not establishedSchools, property taxes or what a particular street is like. None of the sources here measure them.

How we counted

Stations and lines. Metra’s GTFS schedule feed (schedules.metrarail.com/gtfs), read October 19, 2026: every stop the SouthWest Service and Heritage Corridor serve, placed in its town by the Census Bureau’s geocoder. Stops inside Chicago and Union Station are not counted as suburban stations; a stop on unincorporated land counts as a station but makes no town a station town.
Train service. Weekday trains whose last stop is Union Station, counted at each station they serve. Morning rides use those arriving downtown from 6:00 to 9:30 a.m.: scheduled arrival minus scheduled departure from the station. A town with several stations is shown at the one with the most trains.
Which towns. Incorporated cities, towns and villages in the Census Bureau’s 2024 gazetteer. A town without a station is included if it lies in Cook, Will or DuPage County and its closest Metra station on any line, measured from the Census internal point, is a suburban SouthWest Service or Heritage Corridor station within 8 miles.
Census figures. American Community Survey 2020–2024 five-year estimates, tables B01003, B25077, B19013 and B25064, from the Census Bureau’s table-based summary files. An asterisk marks a figure whose margin of error is more than a quarter of the estimate; read those as rough. A dash means the survey published no estimate.
What we did not do. We did not rank the towns or score them, and nothing here weighs schools, taxes or safety.

Compiled by KCM Desk from Metra’s schedule feed and Census Bureau files read October 19, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.