MI · Wayne County · 639,111 (2020) · 27th-largest US city · Eastern time
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit lies on the Detroit River between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie in southeast Michigan, directly across the river from Windsor, Ontario. It is the largest city in Michigan and the twenty-seventh in the United States.
- State
- Michigan
- County
- Wayne County
- Population (2020)
- 639,111
- Rank
- 27th in the US
- Coordinates
- 42.33°N, 83.05°W
- Time zone
- Eastern
- Metro area
- about 4.4 million
- State capital
- No – Lansing
Where Detroit is
Detroit is at 42.33°N, 83.05°W in Wayne County, of which it is the county seat, in the southeast corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The city covers about 139 square miles of flat lake plain roughly 600 feet above sea level along the Detroit River, the 28-mile strait that carries the waters of the upper Great Lakes from Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie. Canada lies to the south: Windsor, Ontario, faces downtown across the river, and Detroit is the only major US city from which one looks south to Canada. Lansing, the state capital, is 90 miles west; Chicago 280 miles west and Cleveland 170 miles southeast around Lake Erie.
Population and rank
The 2020 Census counted 639,111 residents, ranking Detroit 27th in the US and first in Michigan; Grand Rapids, in second place, has about 199,000. Detroit was the fourth-largest city in the country in 1950 with 1.85 million people, and has lost two-thirds of its population since, though the 2020 decline was the smallest in seventy years. The Detroit–Warren–Dearborn metropolitan area, six counties, has about 4.4 million people, the 14th-largest metro in the US; only about 15 percent of them live inside the city.
Geography
- Detroit River — a strait, not a true river, dropping just three feet over its length; it is one of the busiest waterways in the Great Lakes system and an international border. See the Great Lakes map.
- Lake St. Clair — the shallow 430-square-mile lake at the city's northeast edge, connected to Lake Huron by the St. Clair River.
- Rouge River — enters the Detroit River in the southwest of the city past the Ford Rouge complex.
- Belle Isle and Grosse Ile — the largest islands in the river; Belle Isle is a city park with a bridge to the mainland.
Nearest large cities
Toledo and Windsor are within an hour; Cleveland, Columbus and Chicago are the nearest cities on this list. Distances are approximate road miles from downtown.
| City | State | Road distance (mi) | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland | OH | 170 | SE |
| Columbus | OH | 200 | S |
| Chicago | IL | 280 | W |
| Pittsburgh | PA | 285 | SE |
| Indianapolis | IN | 290 | SW |
Is Detroit the state capital?
No — but it was. Detroit served as capital of Michigan Territory from 1805 and of the state from 1837 until 1847, when the legislature moved the seat to Lansing, then a nearly empty township in the centre of the state, partly to keep the government away from the Canadian border. Detroit is the seat of Wayne County and remains the largest city in the state by a wide margin. Michigan is on Eastern time except for four counties bordering Wisconsin.
Related maps
- Michigan map — the state with its 83 counties.
- Lansing — the state capital since 1847.
- US cities map.
- Great Lakes map and Great Lakes region.
- Nearby: Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Ohio.
- East North Central division · Eastern Time Zone (Michigan is split with Central).