Since Tawas City's founding, the community's economy has been a major factor influencing land use and development patterns.

The rich natural resource base of the area: forest lands, Lake Huron and wildlife, combined with the protection offered by Tawas Bay, inspired the founding of the city and provided resources to support a lumber industry.

The shoreline, as the transition zone between land and water, became the focus of the community, with the city developing in a linear fashion along the bayshore.

[citation needed] Tawas Bay continues to serve as a harbor of refuge, used by large freighters to escape severe storms on Lake Huron.

The local Indians had made camps along the shore of the bay and near the mouth of the river.

Early map makers dropped in an extra “t"; later map makers dropped off the “s.” The name of the point dividing the bay from Lake Huron was known as Ottawa Point.

Comparatively recent spelling and pronunciation for the name of these Chippewa gradually evolved to Tawas.

[citation needed] The Whittemores named the community they founded as Tawas City.

When a community developed around this latter mill, the cluster of homes was, by common consent, named East Tawas.

For many years, residents of both towns and the surrounding farming community often referred to Tawas City as “old town” and to East Tawas as “east town.”[5] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.13 square miles (5.52 km2), of which 1.70 square miles (4.40 km2) is land and 0.43 square miles (1.11 km2) (20.19%) is water.

[citation needed] Tawas City and Iosco County are part of the Flint-Saginaw-Bay City television market; Charter Communications, the cable system serving Iosco County, offers most major channels from that market, along with Alpena's CBS affiliate, WBKB-TV, as well as CBC Television programming from CBMT in Montreal.