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Surhone, L. M., Timpledon, M. T., & Marseken, S. F. (2010), Protected areas of Michigan: Michigan, National Park Service, state forest, state park, wilderness area, Great Lakes, United States national forest OCLC: 613609061, ISBN: 9786130462529, Betascript Publishing{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Miller, F. P., Vandome, A. F., & McBrewster, J. (2009), Lake Huron: Great Lakes, Ontario, Michigan, Wyandot, Great Lakes Storm of 1913, Great Storms of the North American Great Lakes, 1996 Lake Huron cyclone, Saginaw Bay, Georgian Bay OCLC: 537595937, ISBN: 9786130241148, Alphascript Publishing{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Magnolia677 Four of the Great Lakes are shared across an international border between the United States and Canada. Canada is officially and legally a bilingual country.
That is 80%. And by volume and acreage it could be more given the relative sizes of Lake Superior and Lake Huron.
Lake Michigan is but one of five. I am not suggesting that we put Finnish on it, but it shares a border with the Upper Peninsula. The latter suggestion is a mere jest, and you have to have at least gone to the Yooper to get it.
Canada may be officially bilingual, but each province is not, and English Wikipedia absolutely is not. MOS:FIRST and MOS:LEADLANG in no way support that bilingual countries need every article about a portion of its geography translated. Could you imagine what the first sentence of the Alps (also a geographic region) would look like? Magnolia677 (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@7&6=thirteen: respectfully, the MOS provisions don't support including it. The status of New Brunswick and Québec isn't relevant as those provinces don't border the Great Lakes. (Lake Ontario is surrounded by Ontario and New York; Québec does not border the lake.)
I've said everything I intend to say. I didn't introduce it initially, and I await others to provide their insight. Cheers. Always good to hear from a fellow Michigander, User:Imzadi1979, whose perspective and contributions I value. 7&6=thirteen (☎)19:28, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
It has been this way, forever. That's not to say it can't change but one would expect someone to try to understand why that would be. My take has been, it is a common alternative, and just because it is in a different language does not mean it cannot be a common alternative. We regularly feature common alternatives in the first sentence. It also is tied to the history of the lakes. The history of Quebec which once reached to the Mississippi encompassing all the lakes is very much related, as is the topography of the lake system. Even to this day, Quebec is a member of the international working organizations on these lakes because you can't have the system without Quebec. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:06, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I didn't mean to add these details to the first sentence, I just wanted to justify adding the French name of the lakes to it. Here's another argument, a picture of a bilingual sign at Lake Superior Provincial Park in Ontario:
Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The algorithm used in this article to convert figures from sq mi to sq km is imprecise. The area figures in sq km are not accurate. The source of those sq km figures does not provide a correct figure. Lepidux (talk) 07:43, 22 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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