Great Lakes region (North America)

The Great Lakes region of North America is a bi-national Canadian-American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. The region borders the Great Lakes and forms a distinctive historical, economic, and cultural identity. A portion of the region also encompasses most of the Great Lakes Megalopolis, which extends outside the region to St. Louis, Missouri.

The Great Lakes Commission, authorized by the region's American states and Province of Ontario, and the additional Canadian Province of Quebec, comprises a bi-national authority with specified powers to protect and preserve the water and environmental resources of the Great Lakes and surrounding waterways and aquifers. The Commission's authorities are confirmed by the Canadian and American federal governments, and by its constituent states and provinces.

The Great Lakes region takes its name from the corresponding geological formation of the Great Lakes Basin, a narrow watershed encompassing The Great Lakes, bounded by watersheds to the region's north (Hudson Bay), west (Mississippi), east and south (Ohio). To the east, the rivers of St. Lawrence, Richelieu, Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna form an arc of watersheds east to The Atlantic.

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