What is the Difference Between ‘Mitten Michigan’ and ‘Non-Mitten Michigan’?

Michigan has two peninsula. Everyone learns that in elementary school. And most people also realize the shape of the Lower Peninsula is a mitten.

So would it be accurate to divide the state into Mitten and Non-Mitten sections?

It's perhaps just a hair more complex than saying Mitten Michigan is the Lower Peninsula and Non-Mitten Michigan is the Upper Peninsula. There are sections of the Lower Peninsula that are not a part of the mitten shape.

Beyond the Mitten: Lower Peninsula's Unexpected Shapes

First are the Lake Michigan islands. The Manitou Islands, Fox Islands and Beaver Island are not part of the Mitten.

There are also sections of the the Lower Peninsula that don't quite fit the mitten shape. The Leelanau Peninsula west of Traverse City is an odd claw that don't fit a mitten. Neither does the Old Mission Peninsula jutting north from Traverse City and splitting Grand Traverse Bay.

There are, therefore, other odd Mitten appendages in the Lower Peninsula particularly around Detroit and Lake St Clair. Grosse Ile don't fit the mitt. Neither does the area around Algonac and Harsens Island appearing almost as a wart at the bottom of the Thumb.

READ MORE: Michigan's UP: Where Hundreds of Miles Go By Without a Single Stoplight

So perhaps not perfectly geographically Mitten Michigan, but culturally Mitten Michigan?

Defining "Non-Mitten Michigan": A Cultural Primer

The question about Mitten and Non-Mitten Michigan comes innocently enough from a contributor on Reddit who asked on the Geography subreddit "what's non mitten Michigan like."

For someone who's uninitiated by the differences between the two peninsulas here's the primer:

The upper peninsula is highly rural, one of if not the most sparsely populated regions east of the Mississippi.

It feels like Appalachia in the northern Midwest.

Not a rivalry exactly, but Yoopers call us "trolls."

It felt different immediately on going north from mitten Michigan at the Strait of Mackinac. It felt a lot more “northern”.

They love food, smoking, and disdain anything overly sophisticated. I lived in Menominee for four winters and that was enough.

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It's a slightly different way to think about the geography of two distinct Michigans - Mitten and Non-Mitten.