MIDLAND

town, Simcoe county, south-central Ontario, Canada. It is located on Midland Bay, an arm of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. It was surveyed in 1872 and became a village in 1878 and a town in 1887. Midland has large harbour installations and grain elevators and is a customs port and a steamship terminal for the Georgian Bay resorts. On the Wye River about 3 miles (5 km) east of Midland is the reconstructed Fort-Sainte-Marie, which from 1639 to 1649 was the Jesuit mission headquarters for the Huron region. It was one of the first European settlements in inland Canada and had Ontario's first hospital, school, and farm. Nearby are Little Lake Park, with a replica of a Huron Indian village and a museum, and the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre. Pop. (1991) 13,865. city, seat (1850) of Midland county, east-central Michigan, U.S. It lies along the Tittabawassee River, just west of Bay City and University Center. It originated in the 1830s as a lumbering settlement and was named after the county, which is approximately in the middle of the state. Brine deposits formed the basis of the city's chemical industry, which was established in 1888 by Herbert H. Dow, and the city expanded with the growth of the Dow Chemical Company, which was located there. A wide range of industrial, agricultural, and consumer chemicals and petrochemicals is now manufactured. The city is also noted for its modern architecture. Inc. village, 1869; city, 1887. Pop. (1992 est.) city, 38,630; SaginawBay CityMidland MSA, 405,376. city, seat (1885) of Midland county, western Texas, U.S. It lies on the southern edge of the High Plains, just northeast of Odessa. Midland was founded in 1884 as a depot on the Texas and Pacific Railway and named for its position midway between El Paso and Fort Worth (300 miles east). Midland is the hub of a 12-county ranching region noted for Hereford cattle. It is also the financial and trade centre for the vast Permian Basin, which contains large quantities of oil, natural gas, anhydrite, salt, and potassium. Oil was discovered in the basin in 1923, and three years later the oil industry began moving into Midland. With tens of thousands of producing wells in the basin and hundreds of oil-company offices in the city, it became one of the nation's most important oil centres. Oil distribution, petrochemical industries, and livestock dominate the city's economy. Midland's Permian Basin Petroleum Museum traces the history and development of the basin, which was once an ancient sea. Midland College was founded in 1969. Inc. 1906. Pop. (1992 est.) city, 92,967; Odessa-Midland MSA, 234,431.