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Portal:Michigan

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The Michigan Portal

The flag of Michigan
Location of Michigan within the United States

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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Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the country. After the introduction of the Morrill Act in 1862, the state designated the college a land-grant institution in 1863, making it the first of the land-grant colleges in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1870. Michigan State has facilities across the state, and over 550,500 alumni.

The university's six professional schools include the College of Law (founded in Detroit, in 1891, as the Detroit College of Law and moved to East Lansing in 1997), Eli Broad College of Business; the College of Nursing, the College of Osteopathic Medicine (the world's first state-funded osteopathic college), the College of Human Medicine, and the College of Veterinary Medicine. The university pioneered the studies of music therapy, packaging, hospitality business, supply chain management, and communication sciences. (Full article...)

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Benton Lake in Manistee National Forest
Benton Lake in Manistee National Forest
Credit: Nickw252

The Huron-Manistee National Forests are actually two National Forests combined in 1945 for administration purposes and which comprise 978,725 acres (3,960 km2) of public lands, including 5,786 acres (23 km2) of wetlands, extending across the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

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The 1890 Michigan Wolverines football team was an American football team that represented the University of Michigan in the 1890 college football season. The team compiled a 4–1 record and outscored its opponents by a combined score of 129 to 36. The team's sole loss was to Cornell in the final game of the season.

The team had no coach, and its captain was William C. Malley. George P. Codd, who later served as the Mayor of Detroit and in the United States Congress, was the team's manager. George Jewett, who played at the fullback and halfback positions, was the team's leading scorer with 50 points on 11 touchdowns (four points each) and three kicks for goal from touchdown (two points each). Jewett was also the first African American to play football at Michigan. (Full article...)

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