Its motto: If You Seek a Pleasant Peninsula, Look About You.

Its nicknames: Auto State, Great Lake State, Wolverine State.

Romantic landscapes at the heart of the Great Lakes

Lying at the heart of the Great Lakes, the state is embraced by four of these five inland seas — Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, and Erie. The Great Lakes were formed at the end of the last ice age, when meltwater from a vast continental ice sheet filled five enormous basins that had earlier been hollowed out by the ice. Scattered across the state are more than 11,000 lakes, many of them laced together by miles of sparkling rivers that slice through dark forests and spill over countless rapids and waterfalls.

Most of Michigan's lake-strewn terrain is gently rolling. Virtually all of it used to be covered with dense forests that long ago attracted the attention of loggers. Especially prized were the stands of towering white pines, which could easily be milled into building material. The pines also supplied building material for the cities that began to spring up on the treeless Great Plains. By the turn of the century, the state's woodlands started to disappear.

The waters divide the state into two distinct parts — the Lower Peninsula and the lushly forested Upper Peninsula. The Upper Peninsula remains a place apart, even though it has been linked to the Lower Peninsula since 1957 by a bridge. If the peninsula is bitterly cold for much of the year, the summers there are enchanting. The romantic landscape with islands, swamps, and pine forests was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Song of Hiawatha" which he based in part on the legends of Indians in this region.

Northern Michigan is the site of the National Mushroom Hunting Championship every May, when mushroom fanciers take to the woods to search out the prized morel mushrooms that grow there in profusion.

The eight-day National Cherry Festival, held every July, celebrates Michigan's status as the nation's leading cherry producer. Parades, live entertainment, sporting events, and cherry pies are its main attractions.

In 1837 Michigan joined the Union as the 26th state.

(”The USA Diversity of 50 States”)