When the Algonquian Indian tribes greeted the first Europeans in the land of the Great Lakes, Michigan's two peninsulas were deeply forested. Underground lay rich stores of iron and copper. Trappers and traders, lumbermen and miners, in turn exploited the land's resources. The magnificent forest became acres of stump and stubble. Beaver, foxes, and other creatures prized for their fur were soon gone. Played-out mines began to pockmark the northern landscape.
At the turn of the 20th century, the coming of the automobile pumped new life into the economy of the Wolverine State. Michigan became the automobile capital of the world. But the modern state is more than its big cities, where factories run night and day. It is also the port towns on the long state coastline, bulging with traffic as they ship goods from the factories and food from the farms. It is the fertile farm country of cherry and peach and apple orchards, of fine field crops and cattle farms. It is the northern playground of glistening ski slopes and swift trout streams, with plenty of space for swimmers and hunters and hikers. Conservation has restored much of Michigan's forestland. New methods have made the mining of low-grade ores profitable. The state's college and industrial laboratories develop a wide variety of products ranging from drugs to space equipment. Competition from Japan, however, has threatened the automotive industry since the 1960s.
Michigan has the longest shoreline of any state in the Union except Alaska. The only state except Hawaii that is divided by large bodies of water, it is the only state to border on four of the Great Lakes--Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie. The northern section is the Upper Peninsula, which stretches east and west among the lakes. At its eastern end is the Sault Ste. Marie, or Soo, Canal around the rapids of the St. Marys River; this waterway between Lakes Superior and Huron is one of the busiest in the world. The southern section of Michigan is the Lower Peninsula, extending north and south through the lakes. Although the Lower Peninsula is about 2 1/2 times larger in area than the Upper Peninsula, it contains 28 times as many people.
Michigan probably takes its name from Indian words meaning great lake, a term first applied to Lake Michigan. The nickname Wolverine State may have originated in a reference to wolves since there is no evidence that wolverines ever roamed the Michigan forests.
Michigan is one of the North Central states. The two parts of the state are shaped roughly like a mitten with the thumb separated from the mainland by Saginaw Bay. The Lower Peninsula extends north from Indiana and Ohio. From north to south it is bounded on the east by Lake Huron; the Canadian province of Ontario, separated from Michigan by the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River; and Lake Erie. To the west is Lake Michigan. On the north, the 4-mile- (6-kilometer-) wide Straits of Mackinac separate the Lower from the Upper Peninsula. The Upper Peninsula extends north and east from Wisconsin. To the north is Lake Superior and to the south Lake Michigan. On the east the peninsula is separated from Ontario by the St. Marys River.
