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.
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
Empire Schoollisted 2008
Population over time
2 figuresEmpire 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 375 | |
| 2020 | 362 | -13 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 10 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1954 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Empire quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Manitowoc quadrangle1:250000
- 1983 USGS Empire quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
- 1984 USGS Crystal Lake quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1998 USGS Empire quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
14 since 1993Regional 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 4 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 2 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Fireworks | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 August 2004 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | CHIEF |
| 1 July 1993 | Fireworks | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | FIREWORKS |
| 8 June 2011 | Natural | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | POWERLINE FIRE |
| 25 June 1998 | Natural | 1.0 acres | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | POLE |
| 19 June 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | EMPIRE BLUFF |
| 10 June 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | EMPIRE HILL POWER LINE FIRE |
| 27 May 2012 | Natural | under an acre | Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore | GREENAN FIRE |
| 22 May 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | GLEN LAKE FIRE DEPARTMENT 0000151 - 2020 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
8 since 1995Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2016 | Hail | Empire | $85,000 | Hail 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 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Empire | $10,000 | Trees and powerlines down countywide between approximately 1017 PM and 1040 PM. |
| September 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Empire | $5,000 | Several trees downed by wind. |
| July 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Empire | $2,000 | Large tree limbs and power lines were downed by the wind at both locations. |
| December 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Empire | $1,000 | A 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 2021 | Flash Flood | Empire | - | Water up to 6 inches deep flowing over some roads around Empire. |
| April 2011 | Hail | Empire | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Empire | - | no account filed |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burdickville | 6.5 miles | 15 | |
| Glen Haven | 6.5 miles | 8 | |
| Glen Arbor | 7.2 miles | 14 | |
| Leelanau Schools | 8.6 miles | 14 | |
| Port Oneida | 11.2 miles | 14 | |
| Maple City | 11.2 miles | 14 | |
| Cedar | 14.2 miles | 14 | |
| Solon | 15.8 miles | 14 |
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 Empire | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2254376 | The 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.





