US Map / Cities / Detroit

Detroit Map

Detroit is the one large American city that looks south across the water at Canada, and its 646,000 residents in 2024 are about a third of the number it held in 1950.

Where is Detroit?

Detroit is in southeastern Michigan, on the west bank of the Detroit River, with Windsor, Ontario, directly opposite and to the south. The land is flat lake-plain, and the city spreads across it in long radial avenues laid out after the fire of 1805. It is about 280 miles east of Chicago, roughly 170 miles west of Cleveland, and some 205 miles north of Columbus.

Detroit at a glance

Detroit sits at No. 27 in the 2024 estimates, 27,753 people behind Boston and 9,956 ahead of Portland. No second Michigan city reaches the hundred. Against Michigan's 10.14 million residents, though, that is only about 6%. It holds about 36% of Wayne County's 1,771,063 residents.

Detroit in Michigan

Detroit is the seat of Wayne County, the most populous of Michigan's 83 counties; Oakland and Macomb counties complete the suburban ring, and the Michigan county map shows how much of the state's population sits in that one corner. The capital, Lansing, is 90 miles northwest, and Grand Rapids anchors the opposite side of the Lower Peninsula. The Michigan state page covers both peninsulas and the lakes between them.

A strait, not a river

The French name means "the strait", and that is what the Detroit River is: a 28-mile channel carrying the flow of the upper Great Lakes from Lake St. Clair down to Lake Erie. Every ship moving iron ore and grain between Lake Superior and the lower lakes passes the city, which is why a fort was placed here in 1701 and why the auto industry found it convenient two centuries later. Because the river runs roughly north to south at this point and Canada lies on the east bank, Windsor is south of Detroit.

Cities near Detroit

Around the lakes are Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, Columbus and Buffalo. The Great Lakes page explains the system all of them sit on.