It is the world's largest lake, by area, located fully in one country,[9] and is shared, from west to east, by the U.S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

Ports along its shores include Chicago, Illinois, Gary, Indiana, Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Muskegon, Michigan.

[11] Some of the most well-studied early human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Native Americans.

Their culture declined after 800 AD, when, for the following few hundred years, the region was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Native Americans.

In the early 17th century, when Western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Native Americans, mainly the historic Chippewa, Menominee, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, Miami, Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples.

The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634 or 1638.

During the 1640s and 1650s, the Beaver Wars (over the fur trade with the European colonies), initiated by the Iroquois, forced a massive demographic-shift, as their western neighbors fled the violence.

Located on the southern side of the straits sits the town of Mackinaw City, Michigan, the site of Fort Michilimackinac (a reconstructed French fort founded in 1715); on the northern side is St. Ignace, Michigan, site of a French Catholic mission to the Indians (founded in 1671).

[16] French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

[18] The first person to reach the deep bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985.

Prevailing westerly winds tend to move the surface water toward the east, producing a moderating effect on the climate of western Michigan.

[21] Hydrologically Michigan and Huron are the same body of water (sometimes called Lake Michigan-Huron) but are normally considered distinct.

Despite their vast size, large sections of the Great Lakes freeze in winter, interrupting most shipping.

Pleasure boats can enter or exit the Great Lakes by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York.

In the winter of 1964, Lakes Michigan and Huron reached their lowest level at 1.38 feet (42 cm) below datum.

[28] In January 2013, Lake Michigan's monthly mean water levels dipped to an all-time low of 576.2 ft (175.6 m),[29] reaching their lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918.

[30] Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' district office in Detroit, explained that biggest factors leading to the lower water levels in 2013 were a combination of the "lack of a large snowpack" in the winter of 2011/2012 coupled with very hot and dry conditions in the summer of 2012.

The Great Lakes are collectively administered by the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, intergovernmental organization led by the governing chief executives of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec, and by the governors of the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The Chicago Tribune reported that BP is a major polluter, dumping thousands of pounds of raw sludge into the lake every day from its Whiting, Indiana, oil refinery.

This is partly because of the prevailing winds from the west (which also cause thick layers of ice to build on the eastern shore in winter).

The Chicago lakefront is accessible for about 24 miles (39 km) between the city's southern and northern limits along the lake.

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

However, several introduced invasive species, such as lampreys, round goby, zebra mussels and quagga mussels, continue to cause major changes in water clarity and fertility, resulting in knock-on changes to Lake Michigan's ecosystem, threatening the vitality of native fish populations.

[39] Sports fishing includes salmon, whitefish, smelt, lake trout and walleye as major catches.

In the late 1960s, successful stocking programs for Pacific salmon led to the development of Lake Michigan's charter fishing industry.

From May to October, the historic steamship, SS Badger, operates daily between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington, Michigan,[43] connecting U.S. Highway 10 between the two cities.

[44] The lake is a great place to view ice volcanoes,[45] which typically occur at the start of the winter season.