Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan
Landsat image
Map of Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes
Location	United States
Group	Great Lakes
Coordinates	44°N 87°W / 44°N 87°W / 44; -87Coordinates: 44°N 87°W / 44°N 87°W / 44; -87
Lake type	Glacial
Primary inflows	Fox River, Grand River, Menominee River, Milwaukee River, Muskegon River, Kalamazoo River, St. Joseph River
Primary outflows	Straits of Mackinac, Chicago River, Calumet River
Basin countries	United States
Max. length	307 mi (494 km)
Max. width	118 mi (190 km)
Surface area	22,404 sq mi (58,030 km2)
Average depth	279 ft (85 m)
Max. depth	923 ft (281 m)
Water volume	1,180 cu mi (4,900 km3)
Residence time	99 years
Shore length1	1,400 mi (2,300 km) plus 238 mi (383 km) for islands
Surface elevation	577 ft (176 m)
Islands	see list
Settlements	see #Cities
References
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U.S. and Canada. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron (and is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia). To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the wide Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are technically a single lake. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U.S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Ports along its shores include, Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gary, Indiana, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. The word "Michigan" originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning "great water". In the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of "Michigan".

Some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Indians. Their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the next few hundred years, the region was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Indians. In the early 17th century, when western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Indians: the Chippewa; Menominee; Sauk; Fox; Winnebago; Miami; Ottawa; and Potawatomi. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634 or 1638.