By 1920, based on the booming auto industry and immigration, it became a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth-largest city in the United States. Founded as a New France fur trading post, it began to expand during the 19th century with American settlement around the Great Lakes. It is the first European settlement above tidewater in North America.
Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan, was settled in 1701 by French colonists.
