Portal:Michigan

The Michigan Portal

Michigan (/ˈmɪʃɪɡən/ ^ⓘ MISH-ig-ən) is a peninsular state in the Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, Indiana and Illinois to the southwest, Ohio to the southeast, and the Canadian province of Ontario to the east, northeast and north. With a population of 10.14 million and an area of 96,716 sq mi (250,490 km²), Michigan is the tenth-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by total area east of the Mississippi River. The state capital is Lansing, while its most populous city is Detroit. The Metro Detroit region in Southeast Michigan is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. Other important metropolitan areas include Grand Rapids, Flint, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, the Tri-Cities, and Muskegon.

Michigan consists of two peninsulas: the heavily forested Upper Peninsula (commonly called "the U.P."), which juts eastward from northern Wisconsin, and the more populated Lower Peninsula, stretching north from Ohio and Indiana. The peninsulas are separated by the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and are linked by the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge along Interstate 75. Bordering four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair, Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any U.S. political subdivision, measuring 3,288 miles. The state ranks second behind Alaska in water coverage by square miles and first in percentage, with approximately 42%, and it also contains 64,980 inland lakes and ponds.

The Great Lakes region has largely been inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples such as the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot. Some people contend that the region's name is derived from the Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami), meaning "large water" or "large lake". Others say that it comes from the Mishiiken Tribe of Mackinac Island, also called Michinemackinawgo by Ottawa historian Andrew Blackbird, whose surrounding lands were referred to as Mishiiken-imakinakom, later shortened to Michilimackinac.

In the 17th century, French explorers claimed the area for New France. French settlers and Métis established forts and settlements. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the area came under British control and later the U.S. following the Treaty of Paris (1783), though control remained disputed with Indigenous tribes until treaties between 1795 and 1842. The area was part of the larger Northwest Territory; the Michigan Territory was organized in 1805. (Full article...)

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The 2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game was a regular season college football game between the Appalachian State Mountaineers and Michigan Wolverines. It was held at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on September 1, 2007, and was the first game of the season for both teams. The Wolverines entered the game ranked No. 5 in both major Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) polls and media outlets considered them to be preseason favorites to win the Big Ten championship as well as possible contenders for the national championship, while the Mountaineers were ranked No. 1 in The Sports Network's Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) poll and were preseason favorites to win their third consecutive FCS national championship.

Games between FBS and FCS teams typically result in lopsided victories for the FBS team, and the Appalachian State–Michigan game was not expected to be an exception. So confident were Las Vegas sportsbooks in Michigan's chances that no betting line was issued for the game. The game was also the first to be broadcast on the then-new Big Ten Network. It began with a strong first half for Appalachian State, who held a 28–17 lead at the end of the half. Michigan regained the lead at 32–31 in the fourth quarter, but Appalachian State took the lead for a second time on a short field goal with 26 seconds left. The Mountaineers blocked a game-winning field goal attempt from Michigan at the end of regulation to secure a 34–32 win. (Full article...)

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An old painting of Marquette, a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 19,661, with the 2007 population estimated placing it at 20,780. It is the county seat of Marquette County.

Did you know -

... that rapper Gmac Cash attempted to gift a pair of Cartier glasses to Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan?
... that L. Whitney Watkins was given the Bull Moose Party's nomination in a 1912 election despite his own opposition?
... that The Game led to a boom in all-channel TV sales so viewers could see the game on Ohio State University's TV station?
... that the first general manager of a Michigan radio station almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning during construction?
... that Felix Frankfurter coined the phrase "burn the house to roast the pig" when writing about literary censorship in Butler v. Michigan?
... that although nine alibi witnesses placed Temujin Kensu more than 400 miles from a shooting in Port Huron, Michigan, in November 1986, he was convicted of murder and has been in prison ever since?

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The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit as a member of the minor league Western League in 1894 and is the only Western League team still in its original city. They are also the oldest American League team still playing in their original city under their original name.

Since their establishment as a major league franchise in 1901, the Tigers have won four World Series championships (1935, 1945, 1968, and 1984), 11 AL pennants (1907, 1908, 1909, 1934, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1968, 1984, 2006, 2012), and four AL Central division championships (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014). They also won division titles in 1972, 1984, and 1987 as a member of the AL East. Since 2000, the Tigers have played their home games at Comerica Park in Downtown Detroit. (Full article...)

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Romney, c. 1969

George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as chairman and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and 3rd secretary of housing and urban development from 1969 to 1973. He was the father of Mitt Romney, who served as United States senator from Utah and as governor of Massachusetts and was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee; the husband of 1970 U.S. Senate candidate Lenore Romney; and the paternal grandfather of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.

Romney was born to American parents living in the polygamist Mormon colonies in Mexico; events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to flee back to the United States when he was a child. The family lived in several states and ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they struggled during the Great Depression. Romney worked in a number of jobs, served as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United Kingdom, and attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any. In 1939, he moved to Detroit and joined the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, where he served as the chief spokesman for the automobile industry during World War II and headed a cooperative arrangement in which companies could share production improvements. He joined Nash-Kelvinator Corporation in 1948, and became the chief executive of its successor, American Motors, in 1954. There he turned around the struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the compact Rambler car. Romney mocked the products of the "Big Three" automakers as "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" and became one of the first high-profile, media-savvy business executives. Devoutly religious as a Latter-day Saint, he was president of the Detroit stake. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various Michigan-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Great Seal of the State of Michigan (from History of Michigan)
Image 2Michigan is the leading U.S. producer of tart cherries, blueberries, pickled cucumbers, navy beans, and petunias (from Michigan)
Image 3The Huron National Wildlife Refuge, one of the fifteen federal wildernesses in Michigan (from Michigan)
Image 4Gerald Ford, a politician from Grand Rapids who was elected to the House of Representatives thirteen times and also served as House Minority Leader and then Vice President, became the 38th President of the United States after the resignation of Richard Nixon. (from History of Michigan)
Image 5Mackinac Island is well known for cultural events and a wide variety of architectural styles, including the Victorian Grand Hotel. (from Michigan)
Image 6The Detroit–Windsor area is North America's largest cross-border conurbation, with a combined population of approximately six million people (from Michigan)
Image 7Detroit, c. 1837, after a sketch by Frederick Grain (from History of Michigan)
Image 8The Tahquamenon Falls in the Upper Peninsula (from Michigan)
Image 9Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station on the shore of Lake Erie, near Monroe (from Michigan)
Image 10Cora Reynolds Anderson became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives in Michigan in 1925. (from History of Michigan)
Image 11The Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, one of the 221 state game and wildlife areas in Michigan. It encompasses 7,483 acres of hunting, recreational, and protected wildlife and wetland areas at the mouth of the Huron River at Lake Erie, as well as smaller outlying areas within the Detroit River. (from Michigan)
Image 12The 2011 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan (from Michigan)
Image 13Map of the original 13 colonies and their territories. Note that Michigan was the object of multiple claims. (from History of Michigan)
Image 14Ethnic origins in Michigan in 2021. (from Michigan)
Image 15Map of the British and French settlements in North America in 1750, before the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763) (from History of Michigan)
Image 16Fort Michilimackinac at the Straits of Mackinac (from Michigan)
Image 17Holland, Michigan, is the home of the Tulip Time Festival, the largest tulip festival in the U.S. (from Michigan)
Image 18Michigan in 1718, Guillaume de L'Isle map, approximate state area highlighted (from History of Michigan)
Image 19Treaty 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 History of Michigan)
Image 20Michigan Supreme Court at the Hall of Justice (from Michigan)
Image 21The Michigan State Capitol in Lansing houses the legislative branch of the government of the US state of Michigan. (from Michigan)
Image 22Mackinac Island Marina after the 2006 Port Huron to Mackinac Boat Race (from Michigan)
Image 232024 U.S. presidential election results by county in Michigan
Democratic
Republican
(from Michigan)
Image 24The Blue Water Bridge, a twin-span bridge across the St. Clair River that links Port Huron and Sarnia, Ontario (from Michigan)
Image 25Köppen climate types of Michigan, using 1991–2020 climate normals (from Michigan)
Image 26Sailors of the Michigan Naval Militia standing at attention during a parade in the 1920s, following World War I (from Michigan)
Image 27Map of British America showing the original boundaries of the Province of Quebec and its Quebec Act of 1774 post-annexation boundaries (from Michigan)
Image 28Mackinac Island, an island and resort area at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac. More than 80% of the island is preserved as Mackinac Island State Park. (from Michigan)
Image 29Sleeping Bear Dunes, along the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (from Michigan)
Image 30Père Marquette and the Indians (1869), by Wilhelm Lamprecht (from Michigan)
Image 31Detroit 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 32Aerial view of Detroit Metro Airport (DTW) (from Michigan)
Image 33A 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 34Map of the Saint Lawrence River/Great Lakes Watershed in North America. Its drainage area includes the Great Lakes, the world's largest system of freshwater lakes. The basin covers nearly all of Michigan. (from Michigan)
Image 35The floor of the Michigan House of Representatives (from Michigan)
Image 36The Detroit-Windsor border crossing is the busiest international border crossing in North America by trade volume, with approximately one-third of all Canada-U.S. trade passing through this link. Pictured in the background is the under-construction Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will complement the existing Ambassador Bridge, shown in the foreground. (from Michigan)
Image 37Michigan as part of the Province of Quebec 1774–1776 (from History of Michigan)
Image 38Marquette, Michigan, is home to a vast snowmobile trail system. (from Michigan)
Image 39Union 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 40Treaty 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)
Image 41U.S. Highway 2 (US 2) runs along Lake Michigan from Naubinway to its eastern terminus at St. Ignace. (from Michigan)
Image 42Dwarf lake iris (from Michigan)
Image 43Michigan Municipalities (from Michigan)
Image 44Chateau Chantal, a winery and designated American Viticultural Area, is located on the Old Mission Peninsula (from Michigan)
Image 45Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaking at a National Guard ceremony in 2019 (from Michigan)
Image 46The Mackinac Bridge, a suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac to connect the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan (from Michigan)

Topics

Symbols

Animate insignia
Bird	American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
Fish	Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)
Flower	Apple blossom (Malus domestica)
Game animal	White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Mammal	Wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) (unofficial)
Reptile	Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta)
Tree	Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)
Wildflower	Dwarf Lake Iris (Iris lacustris)

Inanimate insignia
Fossil	Mastodon (Mammut americanum)
Gemstone	Isle Royale greenstone or Chlorastrolite
Motto	"Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice" Latin for "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you"
Nicknames	Wolverine State Great Lakes State Mitten State Winter Water Wonderland
Soil	Kalkaska Sand
Songs	My Michigan
Stone	Petoskey stone

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WikiProject Michigan
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