The Great Lakes region of North America includes the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. The region borders the Great Lakes and forms a distinctive historical, economic, and cultural region. The Great Lakes Commission, authorized by the eight American states and Ontario, confirmed by the Canadian and American federal governments recognizes a formal U.S. - Canadian International Great Lakes Region, with the additional inclusion of the Canadian Province of Quebec.
The Great Lakes Region takes its name from the corresponding geological formation of the Great Lakes Basin, a narrow watershed encompassing The Great Lakes, among watersheds to the region's north (Hudson Bay), west (Mississippi), east and south (Ohio). To the east, the rivers of St. Lawrence, Richelieu, Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna form an arc of watersheds east to The Atlantic.
The Great Lakes region, as distinct from The Great Lakes Basin, defines a unit of political entities defined by the U.S. states and the Canadian Province of Ontario encompassing the Great Lakes watershed, and bordering one or more lakes.
Read more about Great Lakes Region: History, Economy, Population Centers
Famous quotes containing the words lakes and/or region:
“No doubt, the short distance to which you can see in the woods, and the general twilight, would at length react on the inhabitants, and make them savages. The lakes also reveal the mountains, and give ample scope and range to our thought.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It was a favor for which to be forever silent to be shown this vision. The earth beneath had become such a flitting thing of lights and shadows as the clouds had been before. It was not merely veiled to me, but it had passed away like the phantom of a shadow, skias onar, and this new platform was gained. As I had climbed above storm and cloud, so by successive days’ journeys I might reach the region of eternal day, beyond the tapering shadow of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)