Michigan’s Massive Expansion: How Watershed Borders Would Transform the State

Michigan's borders are fairly well defined. Being surrounded by the Great Lakes as well as rivers at Sault Ste Marie, Port Huron and Detroit, the only land boundaries for Michigan are with Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.

What if state borders had evolved differently? Michigan would gain a great deal of land and lose almost nothing (spoiler alert: Sorry, Monroe) if America's borders were drawn in consideration of river watersheds.

A watershed, in geography, is the area of land drained by a particular river.  Take a look at the Great Lakes region and an expanded Michigan if state lines were drawn in this way:

The map dates back to 2013 and it is credited to the Sonoran Institute. It was shared on Reddit's MapPorn subreddit.

Michigan's Territorial Acquisitions in a Watershed Border World

If watersheds were borders, Michigan would expand in size and somewhat considerably.

The state, in this scenario, is given land from rivers that flow into Lake Superior, Michigan and Huron.

Michigan makes four key territory gains:

St Joseph River Watershed: The St Joe river originates in Hillsdale County before dipping into Northern Indiana - the city of South Bend is named for the south bend of the St Joe River. All of that watershed and much of northern Indiana would belong to Michigan. South Bend and Elkhart become Michigan cites.

Western Watersheds: Michigan picks up a great deal of Wisconsin around Green Bay and all of Minnesota's Lake Superior coast and some territory in Western Ontario. Duluth and Green Bay become Michigan cities.

St Marys River Watershed: Michigan gets Ontario's Sault Marie, the islands of Lake Huron and some of northern Ontario.

St Clair Watershed: Michigan grows at Ontario's expense picking up a good deal of the Ontario Peninsula (giving the state 3 main peninsulas!) including Windsor and Sarnia.

Michigan's Territory Lost in a Watershed Border World

There are two areas Michigan loses, one large the other quite small. Michigan will lose the land that drains into Lake Erie by the Maumee River. This takes out areas like Monroe and Adrian. Southern Lake Michigan is given to Indiana, and with it appears to go the Galien River watershed with land around New Buffalo.

👇🏼 BELOW: These Tiny Michigan Counties Have Less than 10,000 Residents + Every Amtrak Station in Michigan 👇🏼

Of course, this vision is fantasy and would never happen, but it's interesting to consider these drastic changes to Michigan's border.