Michigan is 1.02× the size of Great Lakes

Michigan (state) covers about 250,000 km² (96,500 mi²) and the Great Lakes (lake system) about 245,000 km² (94,600 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Great Lakes outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

250,000km²Michigan
245,000km²Great Lakes

200 km

Michigan
Great Lakes

Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, counted together. Lake Saint Clair and the connecting rivers are not counted. Lakes Michigan and Huron are joined by the Straits of Mackinac and stand at one water level, which is why some sources treat them as a single lake; here they are kept as the two lakes Natural Earth draws.

What fits

Great Lakes is 98% of the size of Michigan.
Michigan is larger by 5,060 km² (1,950 mi²), which is 2.1% of the area of Great Lakes.
Measured in Belgiums: Michigan is about 8.15, Great Lakes about 7.99.

How they differ

Their centres are about 94 km apart.
Together Michigan and Great Lakes cover 495,000 km², close to the size of Spain (499,000 km², 0.9% bigger).
The gap between them, 5,060 km², is about the size of Trinidad and Tobago (5,120 km²).
Their centres lie at almost the same latitude.
Michigan is a state of the United States; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
The Great Lakes is a system of lakes and ranks 2nd of the 100 lakes on sizeversus by area if counted as one.
Laid out flat, Michigan stretches about 737 km north to south and 646 km east to west; the Great Lakes about 852 km by 1,270 km.
Counted as one, the 5 pieces measure 245,000 km². The published figure for the whole, 244,000 km² (Wikidata, the sum of the published figures of its parts), is 0.4% below it.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Michigan	1.02×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Michigan	Great Lakes
Belgium 30,700 km²	8.15×	7.99×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	1.03×	1.00×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.70×	0.68×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.67×	0.66×
France 548,000 km²	0.46×	0.45×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.08×	0.08×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	0.03×	0.03×
United States 9,447,000 km²	0.03×	0.03×
Russia 16,980,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×

Each figure is the place's area divided by the yardstick's.

Side by side

	Michigan	Great Lakes
Is a	StateUnited States	Lake system5 pieces counted together
Area, measured	250,000 km²96,500 mi²	245,000 km²94,600 mi²
Area, published	250,000 km²Wikidata	244,000 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	2nd of 100lakes
Latitude range	42°N to 48°N	41°N to 49°N
On the shore	–	2 on the shore

Published figures: Wikidata (CC0). A lake or a sea has no legal boundary: the measured area is that of Natural Earth’s outline, and it is shown beside the published one.

Natural Earth’s outlines of the United States and Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of the Great Lakes. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.

Similar in size to Michigan

Similar in size to Great Lakes

More comparisons

Sources and method

Outlines: Lakes and seas: Natural Earth 1:10m physical vectors (public domain), kept only where the measured area is within 10% of the published one. Countries and regions: Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 0 and Admin 1, public domain.
Boundary: De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth. A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own; the outline is a cartographic one.
Area: Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The published figure comes from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11, and is shown beside the measured one.
Drawing: Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and the two can be laid over each other.
Data built: 2026-11-11

Full method