Blank Michigan map

What the outline shows

The map shows the Lower and Upper peninsulas as two separate outlines. The Lower Peninsula, the mitten, is bounded almost entirely by water: Lake Michigan on the west, Lake Huron on the east, and Lake Erie at the southeast corner; only the southern edge, a straight line against Ohio and Indiana, is a land border. The Upper Peninsula has Lake Superior to the north, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to the south, and a land border with Wisconsin on the southwest that follows the Menominee, Brule and Montreal rivers. The Straits of Mackinac separate the two. Isle Royale in Lake Superior is included. No counties or cities are shown. Capital marks Lansing, in the middle of the palm of the mitten. Most of the state is on Eastern time; four Upper Peninsula counties bordering Wisconsin are on Central.

Portrait or landscape

Michigan spans about 400 miles from the Ohio line to the top of the Upper Peninsula and about 380 miles across at the widest, from the western Upper Peninsula to the tip of the Thumb. The Lower Peninsula alone is about 280 miles tall and 200 miles wide. With both peninsulas the outline is roughly square and slightly taller; portrait gives the larger print. For the mitten alone, zoom to the Lower Peninsula and portrait is clearly right. For the Upper Peninsula alone, zoom and use landscape, since it stretches 320 miles east to west.

Five classroom exercises

1. Label the four Great Lakes that touch Michigan and mark the Straits of Mackinac between the two peninsulas.
2. Draw the Grand River from Lansing west to Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, and the Saginaw River into Saginaw Bay at the base of the Thumb.
3. Mark the Detroit River and the St. Clair River, the water border with Ontario between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, and place Detroit on it.
4. Place Detroit, Grand Rapids, Warren, Lansing, Ann Arbor and Flint, then shade the Thumb and mark Saginaw Bay.
5. Draw the Menominee River along the Upper Peninsula's Wisconsin border and shade the four counties on Central time (Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson and Menominee).

How to recognise the Michigan outline

• A mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula with a distinct Thumb on the right side.
• A separate Upper Peninsula above it, long and thin, like a rabbit or a wing.
• Water on almost every side; only the bottom of the mitten and the southwest of the Upper Peninsula are land borders.
• A narrow gap, the Straits of Mackinac, between the tip of the mitten and the Upper Peninsula.
• Isle Royale, a long sliver of an island in the top left, in Lake Superior.

Answer key and related maps

• Michigan map — the labeled version with capital, cities and borders; use it as the answer key.
• Printable Michigan map — the same outline with cities, county lines and the capital printed on.
• Michigan county map — all 83 counties with their seats.
• Lansing — the capital, in the centre of the Lower Peninsula.
• Neighbours: Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin blank maps.
• Great Lakes map, Great Lakes region, and Eastern / Central time zones.
• All blank state maps and the printable US maps index.