Michigan

Before Europeans arrived, the Indigenous peoples of present-day Michigan included the Algonquian-speaking Ottawa, Ojibwa, Miami, and Potawatomi; the Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi formed a loose alliance known as the “Three Fires,” while Huron (Wyandot) groups in the southeast spoke an Iroquoian language.⁠[1][2]

In about 1622 Étienne Brulé became the first European to visit the area that is now Michigan, and in 1634 Jean Nicolet, also sent by Champlain, passed through the Straits of Mackinac.⁠[1]

In 1668 Father Jacques Marquette organized the first permanent white settlement within the present state at Sault Sainte Marie, and three years later he established a Jesuit mission at St. Ignace.⁠[1][2]

In 1701 Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac established a permanent settlement on the Detroit River, where his soldiers and colonists built Fort Pontchartrain, renamed Detroit in 1751. Fur trading was the main French activity, and the early white settlers were mostly French fur traders and trappers from Canada; Fort Michilimackinac stood at the Straits of Mackinac.⁠[1][2]

During the French and Indian War the British captured Detroit, Fort Michilimackinac, and Sault Sainte Marie in the early 1760s, and in 1763, after the war, England gained control of Michigan. That year the Ottawa chief Pontiac led attacks on British posts and besieged Detroit, withdrawing after about five months.⁠[1][2]

After the American Revolution, Michigan passed to the United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. Peace with the Native Americans followed the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the Michigan section of the Northwest Territory was named Wayne County in honour of the general. The British did not give up Detroit until 1796 and held some outlying posts until 1814. In 1800 Michigan was included in Indiana Territory.⁠[1][2]

On December 24, 1804, the U.S. Senate passed the act dividing Indiana Territory; it became law on January 11, 1805, took effect on June 30, 1805, and set the boundaries of Michigan Territory. The new territory was organized on the Lower Peninsula with Detroit as its seat of government and had fewer than a dozen small settlements.⁠[3][2][1]

During the War of 1812 Michigan was surrendered to the British in 1812; U.S. rule was restored in 1813 after Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie. On October 29, 1813, Lewis Cass became governor of Michigan Territory, serving until 1831.⁠[2][3]

Public lands were opened to settlers in 1818, and by 1820 Michigan had more than 20,000 inhabitants. The opening of the Erie Canal in New York StateNew York (state)New York is a state in the eastern United States; its capital is Albany and its largest city is New York City. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on July 26, 1788, becoming the 11th state to join the Union, and its population in the 2020 census was 20,201,249.Open the full entry in 1825 further spurred settlement, and within a few years the population had grown to 80,000.⁠[1]

Michigan sought admission to the Union on December 11, 1833. Congress required at least 60,000 people within its boundaries; territorial governor Stevens T. Mason ordered a census in 1834 that counted more than 85,000, and on January 12, 1835, he announced that Michigan was ready to become a state.⁠[4][5]

Delegates to the constitutional convention were elected in April 1835; all 91 who attended were white men. Every white man over 21 who had lived there for six months could vote, while Indigenous people, African Americans, and women could not. On October 5, 1835, voters accepted the constitution and elected Mason as the first governor, and he was sworn in one month later.⁠[5]

In 1817 William Harris ran a boundary line based on OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry’s constitution and John A. Fulton one based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787; the lines were eight miles apart at Lake Erie and five miles apart at the IndianaIndianaIndiana is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. It was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, as the 19th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,785,528.Open the full entry border, leaving 468 square miles in dispute, known as the Toledo Strip. Ohio’s congressional delegation blocked Michigan’s admission until it accepted Ohio’s boundary. In 1835 the 22-year-old Mason mobilized about 250 militia volunteers and marched toward the disputed area, in what became known as the Toledo War; the Ohio legislature approved a $300,000 military budget and Michigan responded with $315,000. President Andrew Jackson intervened and removed Mason from office, ending the conflict.⁠[4]

In 1836 Congress gave the disputed strip to Ohio and the Upper Peninsula to Michigan, which thus received the western three-quarters of the peninsula, about 9,000 square miles of land rich in timber, iron, and copper.⁠[1][4][5]

Michigan sought statehood to fund a larger programme of internal improvements. On admission, Lucius Lyon and John Norvell became its first U.S. senators; on January 27, 1837, Lyon drew Class 2, with a term ending March 3, 1839, and Norvell drew Class 3, with a term ending March 3, 1841.⁠[6][3]

“Michigan Fever” brought rapid settlement in the 1840s and 1850s, including settlers from New York State and New England who came via the Erie Canal and Lake Erie and many foreign-born immigrants. Iron and copper were discovered in the Upper Peninsula in the 1840s: iron ore at Negaunee in 1844 and the Cliff Lode of copper in the Keweenaw District in 1845.⁠[6][1]

In 1847 the state capital moved from Detroit to Lansing, a town then recently carved out of the wilderness.⁠[7][6]

In 1850 voters approved a new constitutional convention, and the resulting constitution reduced the governor’s centralized power.⁠[7]

On July 6, 1854, discontented Whigs, Democrats, and independents met at Jackson to protest the KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry–Nebraska Act, a meeting that led to the founding of the Republican Party, which nominated its first presidential candidate in 1856.⁠[1][6]

About 90,000 men from Michigan served in the Civil War, and about 14,000 of them died. A Black regiment raised in Michigan included enlistees from several states and from Canada West (now Ontario, Canada).⁠[6]

Lumbering was the mainstay of Michigan’s economy in the late 19th century. The Saginaw Valley led logging from 1840 to 1860; from about 1870 to 1890 Michigan led the nation in lumber production, and Muskegon was called the “lumber queen of the world.” Logging in the Upper Peninsula grew in the 1880s, and most of the Lower Peninsula’s pine was gone by 1900. Iron ore came from the Marquette, Gogebic, and Menominee ranges and copper from the Keweenaw Range, and the first salt well was drilled in Saginaw County in 1860.⁠[6][1]

The Michigan State Capitol in Lansing opened on January 1, 1879.⁠[8]

In the 1890s Hazen Pingree, mayor of Detroit and later governor, championed progressive legislation.⁠[6]

Mass production of automobiles began in Detroit in 1901, when an Olds company made more than 400 cars, and by 1904 the Olds plant in Lansing was making 5,000 cars a year. Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is a multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, founded by Henry Ford in Detroit in 1903, with two vehicle brands, Ford and Lincoln. With the Model T and the moving assembly line it ushered in the mass production of automobiles. Its 2025 revenue was about $187.3 billion, it has about 169,000 employees worldwide, and as of October 2026 Jim Farley is its president and chief executive officer.Open the full entry in 1903, and General MotorsGeneral MotorsGeneral Motors Company is a Detroit-based American automaker selling Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC vehicles; the current company was incorporated in Delaware in 2009.Open the full entry and Chrysler followed in 1908 and 1925. The auto industry dominated the state’s economy through much of the 20th century, and Michigan was a strong contributor to the national economy during World War I.⁠[1][6]

The world’s first international railroad tunnel opened between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, in 1910, and a highway tunnel between the two cities was completed in 1930.⁠[1]

After the Great Depression began in 1929, unemployment and deflation in Michigan were well above national averages. In 1937 the United Automobile Workers became the bargaining agent for production workers at General Motors, and by the start of World War II it was the dominant union in automotive plants.⁠[6]

During World War II Detroit built military vehicles and became known as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Ford’s Willow Run plant, opened in 1941 and then the largest assembly plant in the world, built bombers for the war. Major race riots broke out in Detroit in 1943.⁠[6][1]

In 1947 Michigan created the Economic Development Department to assist the growth of industry in the state. Postwar suburban growth and highway expansion led, from the late 1950s, to declines in inner-city population, industry, and services; Detroit’s Renaissance Center was built as part of efforts at urban revival.⁠[1][6]

In 1963 Michigan adopted its fourth and current constitution. It was the first in the country to provide for a state Department of Civil Rights and, in Article VI, Section 1, introduced the “One Court of Justice” principle that makes the courts a single integrated system.⁠[1][6][9]

One of the worst race riots of 1967 took place in Detroit, where at least 43 people died.⁠[1][6]

Gerald R. Ford, a congressman from Grand Rapids, was appointed vice president by President Richard Nixon in 1973 and was sworn in as the 40th vice president of the United States on December 6, 1973; he became president in 1974 after Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal.⁠[1][3]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s an oil embargo, a recession, and rising car imports plunged Michigan into a severe economic crisis, with the highest unemployment rate in the country, widespread business failures, and cuts in state services. Government, business, and education then worked together to attract industry, strengthen the workforce, and develop tourism, and in the 1990s high-tech industry and a rebound in auto manufacturing brought an economic revival with low unemployment. By the early 2000s the auto industry was struggling again, and Michigan’s unemployment rate was once more among the highest in the nation.⁠[6][1]

In 2002 Jennifer Granholm became the first woman elected governor of Michigan.⁠[1]

The state encouraged the development of wind farms, and in 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $550 million nuclear physics project to Michigan State University.⁠[6]

In early 2013 Governor Rick Snyder appointed the bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr as Detroit’s emergency manager. With the city’s debt at about $18 billion, Orr filed for bankruptcy protection for Detroit in July, the largest such claim filed by a U.S. city up to that time. Detroit emerged from bankruptcy in December 2014.⁠[1]

On April 26, 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2020 census apportionment results. Michigan’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives fell from 14 after the 2010 census to 13, with an average of 775,726 people per seat, giving the state 15 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[10][11][12]

The Michigan Legislature is bicameral and sits in the State Capitol in Lansing. The Senate has 38 members serving four-year terms concurrent with the governor’s, and the House of Representatives has 110 members serving two-year terms, elected in even-numbered years. The Legislature may propose amendments to the state constitution.⁠[13][14]

The governor and lieutenant governor are elected jointly on a single vote for four-year terms, and a 1992 amendment limits them to two terms (eight years); the secretary of state and attorney general are also elected statewide. As of November 2026 the governor is Gretchen Whitmer, who was sworn in as Michigan’s 49th governor outside the State Capitol in Lansing on January 1, 2019, and began her second term on January 1, 2023; the lieutenant governor is Garlin Gilchrist II, the 64th lieutenant governor.⁠[15][16][17]

Michigan’s courts have three levels: trial courts, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, the state’s court of last resort, has seven justices elected on the nonpartisan ballot to eight-year terms; its jurisdiction is discretionary, and it receives more than 2,000 applications for leave to appeal each year. Court of Appeals judges serve six-year terms and are elected or appointed from one of four election districts.⁠[9][18][19]

Michigan consists of the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula and the mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula, and the state describes itself as the only state made up of two peninsulas. The Upper Peninsula borders WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Madison and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,893,718 residents.Open the full entry to the southwest, and the Lower Peninsula is bordered to the south by Indiana and Ohio. The two peninsulas are separated by the Straits of Mackinac, about 4 miles (6 kilometres) wide.⁠[20][21][1]

In the Census Bureau’s state area measurements (boundaries as of January 1, 2010), Michigan has a total area of 96,714 square miles (250,487 square kilometres), of which 56,539 square miles (146,435 square kilometres) is land and 40,175 square miles (104,052 square kilometres) is water, including 2,001 square miles (5,182 square kilometres) of inland water and 38,174 square miles (98,870 square kilometres) of Great Lakes water.⁠[22]

Michigan is the only state that borders four Great Lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie—and its shoreline of 2,055 miles (3,307 kilometres) is the longest of any state except AlaskaAlaskaAlaska is the largest U.S. state by area and borders Canada to the east; its capital is Juneau and its largest city is Anchorage. Alaska was admitted to the Union on January 3, 1959, as the 49th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 733,391.Open the full entry: 862 miles on Lake Michigan, 579 on Lake Superior, 564 on Lake Huron, and 50 on Lake Erie. The largest islands are Isle Royale in Lake Superior, Drummond in Lake Huron, and Beaver in Lake Michigan, and the Sault Sainte Marie (Soo) Canal bypasses the rapids of the St. Marys River.⁠[1]

The Lower Peninsula and the eastern Upper Peninsula lie in the Central Lowland, while the western Upper Peninsula lies in the Superior Upland, with the Gogebic, Porcupine, Menominee, and Huron ranges. The highest point is Mount Arvon in Baraga County near Marquette, at 1,980 feet (604 metres), and the lowest is the Lake Erie shore at 571 feet (174 metres). The state has more than 11,000 small lakes, the largest being Houghton Lake. The Manistee, Muskegon, Grand, and St. Joseph rivers flow into Lake Michigan, and the Tahquamenon flows into Lake Superior.⁠[1]

Annual precipitation is 30 to 38 inches (76 to 96 centimetres). Lake-effect snowbelts extend 30 to 60 miles (50 to 100 kilometres) inland along the south shore of Lake Superior and the east shore of Lake Michigan. The growing season is about 180 days in the southwest and about 60 days in the west-central Upper Peninsula, and average annual temperatures in the Upper Peninsula are nearly 10 °F lower than at the southern border. January highs are in the low 20s °F (about −6 °C) at Sault Sainte Marie and in the low 30s °F (about 1 °C) at Detroit, and July highs are in the mid-70s °F (about 24 °C) and mid-80s °F (about 29 °C) respectively.⁠[1]

The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimate put Michigan’s population at 10,127,884 on July 1, 2025, the 10th largest among the states and 0.5% above the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 10,079,362; net domestic migration in 2025 was 1,796. Population density in 2020 was 178.0 people per square mile.⁠[23][24]

In QuickFacts population estimates, 20.4% of residents were under 18 and 20.5% were 65 or older; 76.9% were White alone, 13.9% Black alone, 0.8% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 4.0% Asian alone, 6.4% Hispanic or Latino, and 71.9% White alone, not Hispanic or Latino. In American Community Survey data for 2020–2024, 7.2% of residents were foreign-born, 32.4% of people aged 25 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher, median household income was $72,875 (in 2024 dollars), and 13.4% of people were in poverty.⁠[24]

Later immigrants came from Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, and Poland, and Finns and Scandinavians settled mainly in the Upper Peninsula. African Americans began migrating from the South during World War I; more than one-third of the state’s Black residents live in Detroit, where they make up more than three-fourths of the city’s population. Michigan has one of the largest Middle Eastern populations in the country, concentrated in Dearborn, where many settled between the two world wars to work for Ford. More than 2% of residents have Native American heritage, and the state has 12 federally recognized tribes, including the Ottawa (Odawa), Ojibwa (Chippewa), and Potawatomi.⁠[1]

Detroit suburbs such as Warren, Sterling Heights, and Dearborn are among the state’s largest cities. Grand Rapids, on the Grand River, is known as “Furniture City”; Ann Arbor in the southeast is home to the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a university founded in Detroit in 1817 that moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837; it is governed by a statewide-elected Board of Regents and also has campuses in Dearborn and Flint.Open the full entry; and Flint lies about 60 miles (100 kilometres) northwest of Detroit.⁠[1]

Michigan’s nominal GDP (all industry total, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data) was $733,887.1 million in 2025, $702,412.7 million in 2024, and $676,422.3 million in 2023.⁠[25]

Michigan leads all states in motor vehicle manufacturing. Other heavy industries include fabricated metals, chemicals based on salt deposits, machinery, primary metals, and plastics and rubber, and Battle Creek is the cereal-processing base of the Kellogg Company. Services are now the largest contributor to gross state product, with tourism a major part of the sector.⁠[1]

Dairy products, milk, and cattle are the leading farm products; corn, soybeans, and wheat are grown mainly in the south, along with sugar beets, dry beans, hay, potatoes, and blueberries. A fruit belt about 30 miles (48 kilometres) wide along Lake Michigan makes the state the leader in tart cherries and a top producer of apples and sweet cherries. Its Great Lakes fisheries are rivalled only by Wisconsin’s, with lake whitefish the main catch. The Marquette Iron Range is a major source of iron ore; copper mining declined in the 20th century, and the last regularly operating copper mine closed in the 1990s; the limestone quarry at Rogers City is one of the largest in the world.⁠[1]

In 1808 the Reverend Gabriel Richard, with the territorial legislature, founded a school system; development of a modern state school system began in 1835 and was adopted by the first state legislature in 1837, with John D. Pierce as the first superintendent of schools.⁠[1]

The University of Michigan was founded in 1817 and is based in Ann Arbor, with branches in Flint and Dearborn. A teacher-training institution established at Ypsilanti in 1849 later became Eastern Michigan University, and the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, founded in 1855, is now Michigan State University in East Lansing. Cranbrook Kingswood Schools in Bloomfield Hills was designed by Eliel Saarinen, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts has its roots in a summer music camp that opened in 1918.⁠[1]

Detroit has a symphony orchestra, an opera, and the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History holds the world’s largest permanent exhibit on African American culture; the Motown Museum preserves the house where Berry Gordy, Jr., founded Motown; and The Henry Ford in Dearborn includes the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. The Eyaawing Museum & Cultural Center in Peshawbestown presents Ottawa and Ojibwa history, and the Grand Rapids Ballet is the state’s only professional ballet company. Festivals include Holland’s tulip festival, Traverse City’s cherry celebration, and Frankenmuth’s Bavarian Festival.⁠[1]

The five-floor Michigan History Museum in Lansing covers the state’s story from its first people, the Anishinaabe, to the mid-20th century and is run by the Michigan History Center, part of the state Department of Natural Resources. The Michigan Historical Marker Program was established in 1955, and more than 1,700 markers have since been placed across the state.⁠[21][26]

State park development began in 1919, and the system now has nearly 100 state parks and more than a dozen state recreation areas. Professional teams include the Detroit TigersDetroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a professional baseball club in Detroit, Michigan.Open the full entry, Pistons, Lions, and Red Wings, the last a many-time Stanley Cup winner that earned Detroit the nickname “Hockeytown, U.S.A.”; Michigan State University’s basketball team has won two NCAA championships.⁠[1]

Michigan’s nickname is the “Wolverine State,” and it is also called the “Great Lakes State.” The state motto is the Latin “Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice,” meaning “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.”⁠[8][20]

The Great Seal was designed by Lewis Cass, the second (non-acting) territorial governor, patterned after the seal of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, and adopted by the constitutional convention on June 2, 1835. The coat of arms was adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1835, and the current coat of arms, with the same imagery as the centre of the Great Seal, was adopted by the Legislature in 1911. Numerous flags bearing the coat of arms were in use in the 1830s, but an official flag was not adopted until 1865: recommended by Adjutant-General John Robertson and approved by Governor Crapo, it bore the state coat of arms on a blue field on one side and the U.S. coat of arms on the reverse, and it was first unfurled on July 4, 1865, at the laying of the cornerstone of the monument at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg.⁠[8]

The state flower is the sweet crabapple (Malus coronaria, 1897), the state bird the American robin (1931), the state tree the white pine (1955), the state stone the Petoskey stone (1965), and the state wildflower the dwarf lake iris (1998). In 2023 Manoomin, also known as Michigan wild rice, was designated the official native grain. The Legislature adopted “My Michigan” as the official state song by concurrent resolution on May 21, 1937.⁠[8]

State of Michigan: Official website: https://www.michigan.gov/som (opens in a new window).⁠[27]

Governor Gretchen Whitmer: Official website: https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer (opens in a new window).⁠[28]

Michigan Senate: Official website: https://www.senate.michigan.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]

Michigan History Center: Official website: https://www.michigan.gov/mhc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[26]