Wider than Tall: 480 Miles Separate Michigan’s Eastern and Westernmost Points

Taken as a whole, Michigan is actually wider than it is tall. That may be surprising if you've ever driven the state from the southern border to the Upper Peninsula. However given the length of the Upper Peninsula and the ebbing and flowing of the Lower Peninsula's borders due to the meandering Great Lakes shorelines, taken as a whole Michigan is wider than it is tall.

Here are the numbers.

The easternmost point in Michigan is in Port Huron at longitude -90.41828 while the westernmost point is where the Montreal River meets Lake Superior north of Ironwood. That is -82.41838. The distance between those two lines of longitude is 480 miles.

READ MORE: The Almost Totally Unknown National Bike Routes that Cross Michigan

Contrast that to Michigan's northern and northernmost extremes. The southernmost point of the state is the Michigan/Indiana/Ohio tripoint southwest of Hillsdale at 41.69297 N latitude. The northernmost contiguous point is at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula at 47.48028 N latitude. The distance between those two points is 347 miles.

Even if you included Isle Royale and it's northern neighbor Passage Island, the northerly point of that landmass is 48.23863 N latitude or 393 miles - still nearly 100 miles fewer than Michigan's wide east and west points.

So should you ben taking a drive up the Lower Peninsula and getting an are-we-there-yet feeling, know that going east to west in Michigan is a much longer trip.