Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the United States, being bordered by four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. It also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. Michigan has the second-most water area of any state, behind only Alaska.
The area was first occupied by a succession of Native American tribes over thousands of years. In the 17th century, French explorers claimed it as part of the New France colony, when it was largely inhabited by Indigenous peoples. French and Canadian traders and settlers, Métis, and others migrated to the area, settling largely along the waterways. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the region came under British rule. Britain ceded the territory to the newly independent United States after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War. The area was part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was formed in 1805, but some of the northern border with Canada was not agreed upon until after the War of 1812. Michigan was admitted into the Union in 1837 as the 26th state, a free one. It soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region, attracting immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from many European countries. Immigrants from Finland, Macedonia, and the Netherlands were especially numerous. Migration from Appalachia and of Black Southerners as part of the Great Migration increased in the 1930s, with many settling in Metro Detroit.
Although Michigan has developed a diverse economy, in the early 20th century it became widely known as the center of the U.S. automotive industry, which developed as a major national economic force. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies (whose headquarters are all in Metro Detroit). Once exploited for logging and mining, today the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula is important for tourism because of its abundance of natural resources. The Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, services, and high-tech industry. (Full article...)
The metropolitan area surrounding and including Detroit, Michigan, is a ten-county area with a population of over 5.9 million, a workforce of 2.6 million, and about 347,000 businesses.
Detroit's six-county Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of about 4.3 million, a workforce of about 2.1 million, and a gross metropolitan product of $200.9 billion. Detroit's urban area has a population of 3.9 million. A 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers study estimated that Detroit's urban area had a gross domestic product of $203 billion.
About 180,500 people work in downtown Detroit, comprising one-fifth of the city's employment base. Metro Detroit has propelled Michigan's national ranking in emerging technology fields such as life sciences, information technology, and advanced manufacturing; Michigan ranks fourth in the U.S. in high tech employment with 568,000 high tech workers, which includes 70,000 in the automotive industry. Michigan typically ranks third or fourth in overall research and development expenditures in the United States. Metro Detroit is the second-largest source of architectural and engineering job opportunities in the U.S. Detroit is known as the automobile capital of the world, with the domestic auto industry primarily headquartered in Metro Detroit. As of 2003, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers claimed that new vehicle production, sales, and jobs related to automobile use account for one of every ten jobs in the United States. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Michigan-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Commemorative stamp, issue of 1935, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Michigan statehood. (from Michigan)
Image 2Union members occupying a General Motors body factory during the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937 which spurred the organization of militant CIO unions in auto industry (from History of Michigan)
Image 23Detroit in the mid-twentieth century. At the time, the city was the fourth-largest U.S. metropolis by population, and held about one-third of the state's population. (from Michigan)
Image 27Ford Dearborn Proving Ground (DPG) completed major reconstruction and renovations in 2006. (from Michigan)
Image 28Cora Reynolds Anderson became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives in Michigan in 1925. (from History of Michigan)
Image 29A map of Michigan by Henry Schenck Tanner, published in 1842, showing such county names as "Negwegon County," "Okkuddo County," and "Unwattin County," prior to an 1843 legislative action renaming sixteen counties in northern Michigan (from History of Michigan)
Image 41Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783), an unfinished painting of the American diplomatic negotiators of the Treaty of Paris which brought official conclusion to the Revolutionary War and gave possession of Michigan and other territory to the new United States (from Michigan)
The Flag of Michigan
The Seal of Michigan
State Quarter – Released in 2004
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