Lick Creek is a 30.6-mile-long (49.2 km)^[1] tributary of Lake Springfield and thus a tributary of the Sangamon River in central Illinois.^[2] It drains a large portion of southwestern Sangamon County and a marginal adjacent fragment of southeastern Morgan County. The drainage of Lick Creek includes all of Loami, Illinois and part of Chatham, Illinois.^[3]

Much of the Lick Creek drainage is intensely farmed arable land. The drainage also contains 460-acre (1.9 km²) of Wildlife Preserve natural area. When land parcels were condemned for Lake Springfield in the 1920s and 1930s, a large section of the lower Lick Creek bottomland was set aside as woodland to protect the lake's water quality. This 340-acre (1.4 km²) riparian zone was designated as the Lick Creek Wildlife Preserve by its owner, the Springfield, Illinois-based City Water, Light & Power, in 1991. According to Sangamon County, the watershed protection zone contains a notable grove of mixed sugar maples and chinkapin oaks. One chinkapin, located in Camp Widjiwagan, has been dated at more than 300 years of age.^[4][5] In addition, a 120-acre (0.49 km²) creekside parcel, the Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary near Loami, has been redesignated for restoration as tallgrass prairie.

Lick Creek gave its name to a short-lived Fourierite phalanx, a Utopian socialist community that operated near Loami in 1845–1846.^[6]

The Interurban Trail, a local bike trail, bridges the Lick Creek arm of Lake Springfield. The bridge area forms a local fishing hole.

The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) shows 12 streams bearing the name Lick Creek in Illinois.