Michigan

State of Michigan

(Flag of Michigan) (Seal of Michigan)
State nickname: "Wolverine State" or "Great Lakes State"
Other U.S. States
Capital	Lansing
Largest city	Detroit
Governor	Jennifer Granholm
Official languages	English
Area	250,941 km² (11th)
- Land	147,255 km²
- Water	103,687 km² (41.3%)
Population (2000)
- Population	9,938,444 (8th)
- Density	67.55 /km² (15th)
Admission into Union
- Date	January 26, 1837
- Order	26th
Time zone	Eastern: UTC-5/-4 (Some Upper Peninsula counties bordering Wisconsin are Central time.)
Latitude	41°41'N to 47°30'N
Longitude	82°26'W to 90°31'W
Width	385 km
Length	790 km
Elevation
- Highest	603 m
- Mean	275 m
- Lowest	174 m
Abbreviations
- USPS	MI
- ISO 3166-2	US-MI
Web site	www.michigan.gov

Michigan is a state in the United States. The name is derived from Lake Michigan, which in turn is believed to come from the Chippewa Indian word meicigama, meaning "great water." Bounded by four of the Great Lakes, Michigan has the longest state shoreline in the continental United States, and more recreational boats than any other state in the union.

History

Michigan was explored and settled by French voyageurs in the 17th century. In 1701, explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit on the straits between Lakes St. Clair and Erie. The town became a major fur-trading and shipping post. Most of the rest of the region remained unsettled by whites, however. Michigan passed to Great Britain in 1763 and then to the new United States two decades later. The population grew slowly until the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which brought large numbers of settlers.

By the 1830s, Michigan had some 80,000 residents, more than enough to apply for statehood. A state government was formed in 1835, although Congressional recognition of the state languished due to a boundary dispute with Ohio, with both sides claiming a 468 square mile (1,210 km²) strip of land that included the important port city of Toledo on Lake Erie and an area to the west then known as the "Great Black Swamp". The dispute eventually culminated into what would be known as the Toledo War when Michigan and Ohio militia maneuvered in the area. Ultimately, Congress awarded the "Toledo Strip" to Ohio, and Michigan, having received the western part of the Upper Peninsula as a concession, formally entered the Union on January 26, 1837.

Thought to be useless at the time of its addition to Michigan, it was soon discovered that the Upper Peninsula was a rich and important source of lumber, iron, and copper, which would become the state's most sought-after natural resources.

Michigan's economy underwent a massive shift at the turn of the 20th century. The birth of the automotive industry, with Henry Ford's first plant in the Highland Park suburb of Detroit, marked the beginning of a new era in personal transportation. It was a development that not only transformed Detroit and Michigan, but permanently altered the socio-economic climate of the United States and much of the world, for that matter.

Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in Michigan, is also a center of automotive manufacturing. Since 1838, the city has also been noted for its thriving furniture industry.

Since World War II, Detroit's industrial base has eroded as auto companies abandoned some of the area's industrial parks in favor of less expensive labor found overseas and in southern U.S. states. Still, with 10 million residents, Michigan remains a large and influential state and ranks 8th in population among the 50 states.

Michigan history timeline

Early European history

• 1622 Étienne Brûlé and his fellow explorers from Grenoble, France, were probably the first white men to see Lake Superior.
• 1668 Père (Father) Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the first European settlement in Michigan
• 1701 Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac, with his lieutenant Alphonse de Tonty, established a trading post on the Detroit River which they name Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit; now the present site of Detroit.
• 1760 Detroit was captured by the British.
• 1760s Chief Pontiac led a major revolt of the Ottawa tribe against the British.
• 1783 The area that is now Michigan is included with the territory ceded by Great Britain to the United States by the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War. The U.S. did not take control of the territory until 1796.
• 1796 Detroit and other posts in Michigan were turned over to the United States under terms of the Jay Treaty. Wayne County was established as an administrative division of the Northwest Territory.

U.S. history

• 1805 Michigan Territory was created, with Detroit designated as the seat of government. William Hull appointed as governor. Detroit was destroyed by fire.
• 1813 Lewis Cass became Territorial Governor.
• 1819 In the Treaty of Saginaw, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded more than six million acres, or 24,000 km² in the central portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to the United States.
• 1821 With the Treaty of Chicago, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded all the lands south of the Grand River to the United States.
• 1823 Congress transferred legislative powers previously exercised by the Territorial Governor and Judges to a nine-member Legislative Council, appointed by the U.S. President who selected them from eighteen persons chosen by the people. The Council was expanded to thirteen members in 1825 and made an elected body in 1827.
• 1828 Territorial Capitol built in Detroit at a cost of $24,500.
• 1835 First Constitutional Convention. Stevens T. Mason inaugurated as the first Governor. A minor conflict with Ohio over the city of Toledo, Ohio, known as the Toledo War, contributed to delaying Michigan's statehood. As a resolution, Ohio received Toledo and the Toledo Strip but Michigan gained the western two-thirds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
• 1837 Admitted as a free state into the union (the 26th state), it was admitted concurrently with the slave state of Arkansas.

Major historical events

• 1817, The University of Michigan is established in Detroit, the first public university in the state.
• January 26, 1837 Michigan became the 26th US State.
• 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a severe setback to the nascent state bank and to several ambitious programs of public improvements, including the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal
• 1838 Patriot War
• 1840 Douglass Houghton reported finding copper deposits on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
• 1846 Marji-Gesick, an Ojibwa Indian, pointed out a large deposit of iron ore to prospector Philo Everett near the present-day city of Negaunee.
• 1847 A law was passed by the State Legislature to re-locate from Detroit the State Capital to a site "in the township of Lansing, in the county of Ingham."
• 1879 New State Capitol dedicated in Lansing. The structure cost $1,510,130.
• 1890s and 1900s Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were founded in southeastern Michigan.
• 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike ended with official recognition of the United Auto Workers by General Motors.
• 1943 Riot broke out pitting whites against blacks during wartime.
• 1957 Five-mile long Mackinac Bridge opened November 1.
• 1967 Race riots struck the city of Detroit. After 5 days of rioting, 43 people lay dead, 1189 injured and over 7000 people had been arrested. The riot had lasting effects on the entire metro region and is usually cited as one of the reasons the Detroit area is among the most segregated areas in the United States.
• 1974 Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids became the 38th President of the United States.
• 1987 Michigan celebrated 150 years of statehood.

Law and Government

• Capital: Lansing
• Law/Government of state
  • governor -- current, previous governors
    • Current: Jennifer Granholm
  • Michigan Legislature -- bicameral
    • Michigan State House of Representatives
    • Michigan Senate
  • structure of state judicary
  • Michigan Constitutions of 1835, 1850, 1908, and 1963
  • state constitution

• Referendum and Voter Initiative: Michigan's constitution provides for voter initiative and referendum (Article II, § 9 [[1]]), defined as "the power to propose laws and to enact and reject laws, called the initiative, and the power to approve or reject laws enacted by the legislature, called the referendum. The power of initiative extends only to laws which the legislature may enact under this constitution."

Michigan counties and townships are statutory units of government, meaning that they have only those powers expressly provided or fairly implied by state law. Cities and villages are vested with home rule powers, meaning that they can do almost anything not prohibited by law.

There are two types of townships in Michigan: general law and charter. Charter township status was created by the state legislature in 1947 and grants additional powers and stream-lined administration in order to provide greater protection against annexation by a city. As of April 2001, there were 127 charter townships in Michigan.

See: List of Michigan Governors, List of United States Senators from Michigan, List of United States Representatives from Michigan

Geography

Michigan, showing rivers and roads

Michigan encompasses 96,810 square miles (250,630 square kilometers), making it the largest state east of the Mississippi River if territorial water is included. Georgia has a slightly larger land area, however.

Michigan borders Indiana and Ohio to the south, and Wisconsin to the southwest of the Upper Peninsula. Michigan also borders Minnesota, Illinois, the Canadian province of Ontario, and the Canadian First Nation (Indian) reserve of Walpole Island, but only on water boundaries in the Great Lakes system. The highest point is Mount Arvon in the Upper Peninsula at 1,979 feet (603 m). The highest point in the Lower Peninsula is not definitely established but is either Briar Hill at 1,705 feet (520 meters), or one of several points closely nearby.

Michigan consists of two peninsulas:

• the Lower Peninsula and
• the Upper Peninsula

The Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten and is 277 miles (446 km) long from north to south and 195 miles (314 km)from east to west. The heavily forested Upper Peninsula (often called simply "The U.P.") is as large as Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island combined, but has less than 330,000 inhabitants, who are sometimes called "Yoopers" (from "U.P.'ers") and whose speech has been heavily influenced by the large number of Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants who settled the area during the mining boom of the late 1800's.

These two sections are connected only by the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge -- the third longest suspension bridge in the world. The two peninsulas are surrounded by an extensive Great Lakes shoreline. Other than Alaska, Michigan has the longest shoreline of any state -- 2,242 miles (3,607 km). An additional 879 miles (1415 km) can be added if islands are included. This equals the length of the Atlantic Coast, from Maine to Florida. The Great Lakes which touch the two peninsulas of Michigan are Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. No point in Michigan is more than 6 miles (10 km) from an inland lake or more than 85 miles (137 km) from one of the Great Lakes, and the state has more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than 36,000 miles (58,000 km) of rivers and streams.

Detroit, Michigan is the only major city in the contiguous United States that is actually due north of Canada.

National parks

• Isle Royale National Park
• Keweenaw National Historical Park
• Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
• Father Marquette National Memorial

See also Protected areas of Michigan, List of Michigan state parks

Economy

Michigan is primarily known as the birthplace of the automobile industry. However, it is also home to a thriving tourist industry, with destinations such as Traverse City, Mackinac Island, Saugatuck and the entire Upper Peninsula drawing vacationers, hunters and nature enthusiasts from across the United States and Canada.

See also: List of companies based in Michigan

• State income
  • The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Michigan's total state product in 2003 was $365 billion. Per capital personal income in 2003 was $31,178, 20^th in the nation.
• Major industries/products
  • Automobiles (General Motors, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler), Amway, Cereal (Kellogg's), Copper, Furniture (Steelcase, Herman Miller, Haworth), Iron
• state taxes

Demographics

Michigan's total population (2003 U.S. Census Bureau estimate): 10,079,985

The racial makeup of the state is:

• 80.2% White
• 14.2% Black
• 3.3% Hispanic
• 1.8% Asian
• 0.6% American Indian
• 1.9% Mixed race

The five largest ancestries in Michigan are: German (20.4%), African American (14.2%), Irish (10.7%), English (9.9%), Polish (8.6%).

Americans with German ancestry are present throughout most of Michigan. Scandinavian (especially Finnish), British, and French ancestry have a notable presence in the Upper Peninsula. Western Michigan is well-known for the Dutch heritage (the highest concentration of any state) of many residents, especially in the Grand Rapids-Holland area. Metro Detroit has many residents of Polish, Irish, and Arab ancestry, and African Americans are a majority in the city of Detroit.

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Michigan are:

• Christian – 81%
  • Protestant – 57%
    • Baptist – 15%
    • Methodist – 10%
    • Pentecostal – 7%
    • Lutheran – 5%
    • Churches of Christ – 3%
    • Other Protestant – 17%
  • Roman Catholic – 23%
  • Other Christian – 1%
• Other Religions – 4% (mostly Muslim and Jewish)
• Non-Religious – 15%

See also Highway map of Michigan

Important cities

Detroit

See: List of cities, villages, and townships in Michigan

The largest cities in Michigan are (according to the 2000 census):

• Detroit population 951,270 (also known as "Motor City" and Motown).
• Grand Rapids population 197,800 (The Furniture City).
• Warren population 138,247.
• Flint population 124,943.
• Sterling Heights population 124,471.
• Lansing population 119,128 (the state capital).
• Ann Arbor population 114,024 (the home of the University of Michigan)
• Livonia, population 100,545
• Dearborn

Other important cities include

• Battle Creek (Cereal City U.S.A.)
• Marquette (Largest city in the Upper Peninsula with 19,661 people).
• Traverse City (the Cherry Capital of the World)
• Midland (headquarters for the Dow Chemical Company)
• Frankenmuth (Michigan's Little Bavaria)
• Holland (Home of the Michigan Dutch)
• East Lansing (Home of Michigan State University)

20 wealthiest places in Michigan

As ranked by per capita income, as of the U.S. census² of 2000:

1. Barton Hills, $110,683
2. Bloomfield Hills, $104,920
3. Lake Angelus, $83,792
4. Bingham Farms, $74,588
5. Franklin, $71,033
6. Grosse Pointe Shores, $69,639
7. Orchard Lake Village, $67,881
8. Michiana, $63,558
9. Bloomfield Township, $62,716
10. Birmingham, $59,314
11. Grosse Pointe Farms, $54,846
12. Grosse Pointe, $53,942
13. Grand Beach, $51,788
14. Sylvan Lake, $48,744
15. Huntington Woods, $45,264
16. South Gull Lake, $45,175
17. West Bloomfield Township, $44,885
18. Northville, $43,454
19. Beverly Hills, $43,452
20. Grosse Ile, $42,150

Of these 20 locations, half are located in Oakland County, just north of Detroit. Only three of these cities are located outside of Metro Detroit. Detroit, with a per capita income of $14,717, ranks 517th on the list of Michigan locations by per capita income. Benton Harbor is the poorest city in Michigan, with a per capita income of $8,965.

Education

Colleges and universities

Community Colleges and Technical Schools

Professional sports teams

Other notable sports teams

• Detroit Fury, Arena Football League
• Detroit Demolition, National Women's Football Association
• Grand Rapids Rampage, Arena Football League
• Grand Rapids Griffins, American Hockey League
• Muskegon Fury, United Hockey League
• Kalamazoo K-Wings, International Hockey League
• Port Huron Beacons, United Hockey League
• Flint Generals, United Hockey League