unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
isthmus
An isthmus (; : isthmuses or isthmi) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea count ...
Grand Traverse Bay
Grand Traverse Bay ( ) is an arm of Lake Michigan, located along the west coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The bay is separated from the rest of Lake Michigan by the Leelanau Peninsula. The bay is some long, ranges from wide, and up ...
.
History
The area was settled by lumberman Murdock Andress in 1863, and a hotel was built in 1869. A post office named Wilson opened on March 29, 1872. It was renamed Eastport on September 8, 1873. The community became a popular shipping area along the east coast
Grand Traverse Bay
Grand Traverse Bay ( ) is an arm of Lake Michigan, located along the west coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The bay is separated from the rest of Lake Michigan by the Leelanau Peninsula. The bay is some long, ranges from wide, and up ...
and the northern shores of Torch Lake. The name Eastport was derived from its eastern location along the bay, which was directly across the bay from Northport.
The community of Eastport was listed as a newly-organized census-designated place for the 2010 census, meaning it now has officially defined boundaries and population statistics for the first time.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Eastport CDP has a total area of , of which is land and (0.50%) is water.
Eastport is located at the northern tip of Torch Lake, Michigan's second-largest inland lake. The community also has a shoreline on
Grand Traverse Bay
Grand Traverse Bay ( ) is an arm of Lake Michigan, located along the west coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The bay is separated from the rest of Lake Michigan by the Leelanau Peninsula. The bay is some long, ranges from wide, and up ...
, a large arm of
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...
.
Major highways
* is a north-south route that runs through the community.
* is an east-west route with its western terminus in the community.