Lake Michigan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded, in clockwise order from the south, by the U.S. states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which is named for it.

The word "Michigan" was originally used to refer to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Chippewa Indian word meicigama, meaning "great water."

Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States; the others are shared with Canada. It has a surface area of 22,300 square miles (57750 square km), making it the largest freshwater lake in the US, the largest lake entirely within one country, and the 5th largest lake in the world.