The village is most known for its rampant residential growth which occurred most heavily in the 1990s. Once a sleepy lakeside village of cottages and small ranches, its population skyrocketed as developers flocked to the area in the 1990s. Its population increased by 17,000 people (a nearly 400% increase) over this period, making it one of the most rapidly growing suburbs of Chicago and in the United States at that time. Education is very important to this young and rapidly growing community. Lincoln Prairie Elementary, an elementary school in Lake in the Hills School District 300, was the highest scoring elementary school in the 2006 Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Lake in the Hills maintains its own park and recreation department within village limits and provides immense programs and diverse types of parks and recreational areas for its community residents to enjoy.

Attractions:
Lake in the Hills include Bark and Sunset Park which offers a variety of sports fields, playgrounds, tennis courts and picnic shelters. Bark Park is is one of the area's only dog parks and serves registered users in the village as a place for their dogs to run and interact with each other. Additional attractions include Boulder Ridge Golf Course and Country Club and Lake in the Hills Fen, a 260-acre natural prairie and recreational area featuring immense tallgrass prairie and hundreds of species of wildlife, many of them considered to be rare or endangered.