City and area featuring varied natural attractions, including freshwater beaches, vineyards, a National Lakeshore, downhill skiing areas, and numerous forests

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Overview

Traverse City is a city in Michigan and is the largest city in the 21-county Northern Michigan region. The Traverse City area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States. Near the time of cherry harvest, the city hosts the annual week-long National Cherry Festival in the first full week of July, attracting approximately 500,000 visitors annually. The surrounding countryside also produces grapes, and is one of the centers of wine production in the Midwest. The Traverse City area features varied natural attractions, including freshwater beaches, vineyards, a National Lakeshore, downhill skiing areas, and numerous forests. In 2009, TripAdvisor named Traverse City the number two small town travel destination in the United States.

Geography

Traverse City is a part of the greater Northern Michigan region. The city is the main inland port of the Grand Traverse Bay—a long, natural harbor separated from the waters of Lake Michigan by the Leelanau Peninsula, and divided longitudinally almost evenly by a narrow peninsula of tiered hillsides and farmland called Old Mission Peninsula.

The most prominent of the city's waterways is the Boardman River. Along with Boardman Lake, the river is part of the Boardman River Watershed. The Boardman's 287-square-mile (740 km2) watershed contributes one-third of the water volume to the bay and is one of Michigan's top-ten fisheries, with more than 36 miles (58 km) of its 179 miles (288 km) designated as a Blue Ribbon trout fishery.

The National Cherry Festival, held during the first full week of July every year, is a draw for tourists to Traverse City. The festival features parades, fireworks, an air show, election of festival royalty, live music, a pie-eating contest and cherries. It is estimated that the Grand Traverse region produces up to 360,000,000 pounds (163,000,000 kg) of cherries annually. The largest variety of cherry produced locally is the Montmorency cherry, or the "pie cherry". Other cherries grown in the region include the Ulster, or sweet cherry, and the Balaton (from Lake Balaton in Hungary), a cherry situated between the Montmorency and Ulster in terms of color and taste.

The Traverse City State Park, with about 250 campsites, is located three miles (4.8 km) east of downtown on 47 acres (19 ha) including a quarter mile beach on the East Bay arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

The Boardman River Nature Center is the interpretive center and management headquarters for the Grand Traverse Natural Education Reserve, a 505-acre local park and natural area.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Traverse City, Michigan", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0