The northern part of the
state of
Michigan, comprising about a third of the
area of that state, separated from the much more populated
Lower Peninsula by the
Straits of Mackinac.
The Upper Peninsula, or 'U.P.' shares a land border with Wisconsin and is bordered on the north by Lake Superior and the St. Mary's River and on the south by Lake Michigan and the Straits of Mackinac. It is sparesely populated throughout. There is hardly any agriculture, and the economic mainstays are mining and logging, with the largest towns being Marquette, Escanaba, and Sault Ste Marie, which is across the St. Mary's River from a much larger Ontario town with the same name.
The eastern half of the U.P. was part of the territory of Michigan as originally conceived, and the western half was given to Michigan by Congress as a solution to the Toledo War crisis. The virgin pine forests of the U.P. were intensively logged in the later part of the 19th century, and later ore mining was developed. The Mackinac Bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, was completed in 1957, connecting the U.P. to the Lower Peninsula for the first time. Still, the U.P. has maintained a largely separate identity, including its own 'state fair' at Escanaba. The people are often called 'Yoopers', a corruption of 'U.P.-ers'.