The Five Themes of Geography

The Door Peninsula, Wisconsin

by Gerald Heath
Indiana University Southeast
 


Location:  There are two types of location: absolute and relative. Absolute location is specific and often based on a mathematical grid system, such as latitude and longitude. The latitude & longitude of the Door Peninsula, Wisconsin, is 44 degrees, 40 minutes N., and 87 degrees 36 minutes W. The relative location of the Door Peninsula, also known as Door County, is that of a popular tourist and vacation area serving the Upper Midwest, especially nearby urban centers such as Milwaukee and Chicago. The peninsula protrudes between Lake Michigan proper and Green Bay. If the map of Wisconsin were likened to a left hand with palm down, fingers together, the Door Peninsula would be the protruding thumb. The tip points north, toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Lake Superior beyond.
 
        


Place:  Beautiful views of the rugged shore of the mighty Lake Michigan are common along the east side of the Door Peninsula, as well as view of Green Bay from the west coast. There are myriad souvenir and craft shops, antique stores, and wineries, as well as State and County parks. Apples, cherries, blueberries, maple syrup and cranberries are some of the specialty agricultural products of the Peninsula. At the base of the Door Peninsula’s bayside is the city of Green Bay, home to the last publicly owned NFL team, and recent national champions, The Green Bay Packers.

       

       
Human/Environment Interaction: How do people utilize and view the natural beauty and resources of Door County? Many use the Peninsula for recreation and tourism. In addition to providing the agricultural products mentioned above, the Door Peninsula shelters Green Bay, harboring a boat building industry and a fleet of Great Lakes fishing boats. Although warnings of poor water quality hampered the fishing industry in the late 1970s, swater quality in Green Bay has since improved, and the door Peninsula is a prime Midwestern tourist destination for site-seeing, camping, boating, and other recreational activities.

Movement:  The Door Peninsula saw the French explorers Marquette and Joliet explore and map Green Bay and the Fox River, which enters Green Bay in the City of Green Bay. The point of the Door Peninsula is a navigation landmark for ocean-going ships in Lake Michigan. Northeast of the Door Peninsula, through the Straits of Mackinaw, boat traffic connects west through the locks of Sault Ste. Marie, via Lake Huron, to Lake Superior, or east through the other Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean. This route saw waves of German, Belgian, Polish, Irish, Italian and Scandinavian migrants, many of whom settled in Door County.

 
Regions:  The following excerpt defines the physical geographic regions of the Door Peninsula:
The Door Peninsula is a north pointing strip of land ninety miles long. Its width varies between four and eighteen miles and it is traversed by lowland valleys that follow joints in the limestone bedrock. The joints run parallel in the bedrock, trending northwest to southeast like a ladder laid along the length of the peninsula, its rungs knocked aslant. And so it is that the valleys, too, are oriented. Some are buried by glacial till. Others hold cedar swamps, wetlands, or streams, and open out into bays on either coast that scallop the margin of the peninsula. [1]
Areas of the peninsula have active sand dunes, and successive ridges of the former lake shorelines of the historic lake Michigan. Near the shores grow “spruces and firs with orchids at their feet [2] ," and “the uplands support sugar maples, beech, some white pine, and hemlock, while in the lowlands are white cedar, hemlock, and balsam fir.”[3] Door County is a distinctive region within Wisconsin. Successively larger areas of regional identification include the State of Wisconsin, the Upper Midwestern United States, and North America.

[1] Far From Tame- Reflection from the Heart of the Continent by Laurie Allman c. 1996 Univ. of Minn. Press
[2] Far From Tame- Reflection from the Heart of the Continent by Laurie Allman c. 1996 Univ. of Minn. Press
[3] Far From Tame- Reflection from the Heart of the Continent by Laurie Allman c. 1996 Univ. of Minn. Press