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Empire, Michigan

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Empire Township. It lies in ZIP code area 49630. It sits by Empire Bluffs. The Survey maps it on the Empire quadrangle. 362 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 610 feet above sea level.

Empire within Leelanau County

On record in Empire

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Empire fell from 375 to 362 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010375
2020362-13 (-3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 10 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

14 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Empire between 1993 and 2020, burning about 40 acres in total. 4 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Natural4
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Recreation and ceremony2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Debris and open burning1
Fireworks1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
22 August 2004Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshoreCHIEF
1 July 1993Fireworksunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshoreFIREWORKS
8 June 2011Naturalunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshorePOWERLINE FIRE
25 June 1998Natural1.0 acresSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshorePOLE
19 June 2013Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshoreEMPIRE BLUFF
10 June 2020Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshoreEMPIRE HILL POWER LINE FIRE
27 May 2012Naturalunder an acreSleeping Bear Dunes National LakeshoreGREENAN FIRE
22 May 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesGLEN LAKE FIRE DEPARTMENT 0000151 - 2020

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Leelanau County

Storms near this place

8 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Empire in 8 storm reports between 1995 and 2021: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2016HailEmpire$85,000Hail to golfball-sized was reported in Empire, and up to three inches in diameter in Glen Arbor. Some vehicles were damaged, and a few homes lost windows and skylights. Considerable damage was done to orchards and vineyards in the area.
August 2021Thunderstorm WindEmpire$10,000Trees and powerlines down countywide between approximately 1017 PM and 1040 PM.
September 2005Thunderstorm WindEmpire$5,000Several trees downed by wind.
July 1995Thunderstorm WindEmpire$2,000Large tree limbs and power lines were downed by the wind at both locations.
December 2001Thunderstorm WindEmpire$1,000A strong area of low pressure moved across the western Great Lakes region on the 5th. Ahead of the system, unseasonably warm and moist air moved into Michigan, causing showers and thunderstorms to develop. A few strong to severe wind gusts were associated with the thunderstorms, with a television station west of Traverse City reporting damage to a satellite dish. As the low passed east of Michigan strong non-convective wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph were common, causing some power outages across northern Michigan.
August 2021Flash FloodEmpire-Water up to 6 inches deep flowing over some roads around Empire.
April 2011HailEmpire-no account filed
June 2008HailEmpire-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Leelanau County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Burdickville6.5 miles15
Glen Haven6.5 miles8
Glen Arbor7.2 miles14
Leelanau Schools8.6 miles14
Port Oneida11.2 miles14
Maple City11.2 miles14
Cedar14.2 miles14
Solon15.8 miles14

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on EmpireAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2254376The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 625588. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.