The city of Midland, Michigan is the county seat of Midland County, in the Tri-Cities region of Central Michigan.

Midland is mostly in east Midland County, although a small portion of the city extends east into Bay County. Most of its land area was incorporated from Midland Township, which still exists in three non-contiguous segments adjacent to the city. Cities and villages within twenty miles of Midland include Sanford, Auburn, and Bay City, although the unincorporated communities of Averill, Fisherville, and North Williams are within ten miles.

With an area of 36.06 square miles, Midland is the fifth-largest city in Michigan by size, although its population is only about 42,000.

Midland has a long history in the chemical and science industries. Dow, whose primary subsidiary is the Dow Chemical Company, was founded in Midland in 1897, and still maintains its global headquarters in Midland. Due to its recent separation into three companies, Midland is also home to facilities for DuPont and Corteva Agroscience.

The city oversees two tax increment financing (TIF) districts: it's Downtown Development Authority and the Center City Authority, which host a variety of industries, businesses, and organizations.

Besides Dow and its subsidiaries, other major employers within the city are MidMichigan Health, Midland Public Schools, Chemical Bank, the City of Midland, and Northwood University.

Midland Public Schools operates seven elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools, and the options for higher education within the city include Northwood University, as well as satellite campuses for Central Michigan University, Davenport University, and Delta College.

The Midland Center for the Arts sponsors several musical and theatrical productions each year, as well as two museums, a historical campus, and the Midland Symphony Orchestra, and Dow Gardens features 110-acres of gardens with several species of perennials and annuals, as well as distinctive bridges and Whiting Forest, home to the world's longest Canopy Walk.

Midland is also home to Dow Diamond, which hosts the Great Lakes Loons, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A affiliate team, as well as the Tri-City Barbarians, a professional rugby team in the Michigan Rugby Football Union, which plays its home games in St. Charles Park. Additionally, the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational is a women's professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour held at Midland Country Club in Midland.

The city maintains 72 parks and 2,700 acres of park land, offering a wide variety of recreational options. These include hiking and biking trails, several youth and adult sports leagues, and other youth programs, as well as access to the Tittabawassee River for canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. In the winter, there is ice skating, sledding, snowshoeing, tobogganing, and cross-country skiing.

Besides the city's parks and trails, there is the Chippewa Nature Center and the Pere-Marquette Trail, which begins in downtown Midland. The Tridge is a three-legged footbridge downtown, at the intersection of the Chippewa and Tittabawassee rivers.

Midland also hosts several festivals and other activities throughout the year.

Prior to its settlement by European-Americans, the area that became Midland was the site of an Ojibwa village, which was concentrated near the confluence of the Tittabawassee River and the Chippewa River, in what is now the southwestern part of the city.

The first European-American settlers were farmers and loggers, although fur traders had come through the region prior its settlement. John A. Whitman is acknowledged as the first permanent white settler after he cleared an area for a farm in 1836. A sawmill was built in the early 1850s, and John Larkin became the first postmaster on March 6, 1856. The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad extended its tracks through Midland in the early 1870s.

Midland was incorporated as a village in 1869, and as a city in 1887.

Herbert Henry Dow came to Midland in 1890, founding a brine and salt works that became Dow Chemical Company. It was his success that allowed Midland to continue to grow while other Michigan communities lost population due to the decline of the timber industries. In fact, Midland expanded by more than a hundred percent in 1920, and by nearly another fifty percent in 1930. In the past few decades, its growth has slowed but the only decline the city has experienced was a three percent decline in 1980, although it is predicted to decline very slightly when the 2020 data is released.

The focus of this portion of our guide is on the city of Midland, Michigan. Topics related to the municipality, the county, or any other governmental agencies based in Midland, as well as local businesses, industries, schools, churches, organizations, attractions, or events are appropriate for this category.

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