Lake Michigan

Map of the Great lakes, dark blue: Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes in North America. It has a surface area of 22,300 square miles (58,000 square kilometers). It is 307 by 118 miles (494 by 190 kilometers) wide. Lake Michigan is the 5th largest lake in the world.

Lake Michigan is surrounded by the U.S. states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It is the only Great Lake that is not partly in Canada.^[1] The largest city on the shore of Lake Michigan is Chicago.

The earliest time that people lived near the lake was 800 CE. The word "Michigan" originally meant the lake itself. It is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning "great water".^[2]

The first person to reach the deepest part of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump. Klump reached the bottom with a submarine as part of a 1985 research expedition.^[3]

Twelve million people live along Lake Michigan's shores. They are mainly in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.

Lake Michigan Media

Most islands in Lake Michigan are in the northern part of the lake. Photo taken from the International Space Station on April 10, 2022.
Grand Traverse Bay, a large bay of Lake Michigan in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, from the community of Elk Rapids
View of Lake Michigan from Indiana Dunes National Park
Lake fisheries postcard produced for the Milwaukee Public Museum, the backside identifies the fishermen as using a pound net.
SS Badger operates ferry services between Manitowoc and Ludington