Upper Peninsula of Michigan

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan (also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop) is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that comprise the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north, separated from the Canadian province of Ontario at the east end by the St. Marys River, and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Although the peninsula as a geographic feature extends into the state of Wisconsin, the state boundary follows the Montreal and Menominee rivers with a line connecting them.

First inhabited by the Algonquian-speaking Anishinaabe for millennia, the peninsula was explored and occupied in the 17th century by French colonists, then annexed by British forces, before being ceded to the United States shortly after its independence. After being divided among various territorial jurisdictions, it was granted to the newly admitted state of Michigan as part of the settlement of a dispute with Ohio over the city of Toledo. The region's exploitable timber resources and the discovery of sizeable iron and copper deposits in the 19th century brought immigrants, especially those of Finnish, French Canadian, Swedish, Norwegian, Cornish, and Italian origin; the western portion of the peninsula includes the only counties in the United States where a plurality of residents claim Finnish ancestry. The area's economy declined in the mid-20th century after all the readily available minerals had been extracted, and has since become largely dependent on logging and tourism.

The Upper Peninsula possesses 29% of Michigan's land area and 3% of its total population; at the height of the mining and timber era in the early 20th century, it was home to as much as 11% of the state's population. Residents are nicknamed Yoopers (derived from "UP-ers") and are noted for their strong regional identity, enhanced by the perception that the economically and politically dominant Lower Peninsula neglects them.