St. Lawrence Seaway in the context of "Buffalo, New York"

Duluth (/dəˈluːθ/ də-LOOTH) is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population was 86,697 at the 2020 census, making it Minnesota's fifth-largest city. Duluth forms a metropolitan area with neighboring Superior, Wisconsin, called the Twin Ports. Duluth is south of the Iron Range and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It is named after Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, the area's first known European explorer.

Duluth is on the north shore of Lake Superior at the westernmost point of the Great Lakes. It is the largest metropolitan area, the second-largest city, and the largest U.S. city on the lake. Duluth is accessible to the Atlantic Ocean, 2,300 miles (3,700 km) away, via the Great Lakes Waterway and St. Lawrence Seaway. The Port of Duluth is the world's farthest inland port accessible to oceangoing ships and is the largest and busiest port on the Great Lakes. It is also among the top 20 U.S. ports by tonnage. Common items shipped from Duluth include coal, iron ore, grain, limestone, cement, salt, wood pulp, steel coil, and wind turbine parts.

The Great Lakes Waterway (GLW) is a system of natural channels and artificial locks and canals that enable navigation between the North American Great Lakes. Although all of the lakes are naturally connected as a chain, water travel between the lakes was impeded for centuries by obstacles such as Niagara Falls and the rapids of the St. Marys River.

Its principal civil engineering works are the Welland Canal between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the Soo Locks between Huron and Superior. Dredged channels were constructed in the St. Marys River, the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River between Huron and Erie. Usually, one or more U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers help keep the water passage open for part of the fall and early winter, although shipping usually ceases for two to three months thereafter. The St. Lawrence Seaway allows navigable shipping from the GLW to the Atlantic Ocean, while the Illinois Waterway extends commercial shipping to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Lakes Waterway is co-administered by the governments of Canada and the United States.

Lake Champlain (/ʃæmˈpleɪn/ sham-PLAYN; French: Lac Champlain, pronounced [lak ʃɑ̃plɛ̃] ) is a large natural freshwater lake in North America. With a length of 107 mi (172 km) and surface area over 500 sq mi (1,295 km), it lies mostly between the U.S. states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.

The cities of Burlington, Vermont, and Plattsburgh, New York, are the largest settlements on the lake, and towards the south lies the historic Fort Ticonderoga in New York. The Quebec portion is in the regional county municipalities of Le Haut-Richelieu and Brome-Missisquoi. There are a number of islands in the lake; the largest include Grand Isle, Isle La Motte and North Hero: all part of Grand Isle County, Vermont. Because of Lake Champlain's connections both to the St. Lawrence Seaway via the Richelieu River, and to the Hudson River via the Champlain Canal, Lake Champlain is sometimes referred to as "The Sixth Great Lake".

Lake Saint Pierre (French: Lac Saint-Pierre, pronounced [lak sɛ̃ pjɛʁ]; Western Abnaki: Nebesek) is a lake in Quebec, Canada, a widening of the Saint Lawrence River between Sorel-Tracy and Trois-Rivières. It is located downstream, and northeast, of Montreal; and upstream, and southwest, of Quebec City. The end of the lake delimits the beginning of the estuary of Saint Lawrence.

This lake which is 32 kilometres (20 mi) long (excluding Sorel Islands) and 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) wide, is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Including its shoreline, islands, and wetlands, the lake is a nature reserve. The body of water is recognized as a Ramsar site and as a Biosphere Reserve, due to the presence of many marshes and wetlands that are frequented by waterfowl. Recreational activities on the river (such as fishing, boating, sailing, swimming, water skiing, nature observation) are active mainly in summer season. Sport fishing is particularly popular, including ice fishing, especially in the great bay of Pointe-du-Lac.

The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, and part of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. The canal traverses the Niagara Peninsula between Port Weller on Lake Ontario and Port Colborne on Lake Erie, and was built because the Niagara River—the only natural waterway connecting the lakes—was unnavigable due to Niagara Falls. The Welland Canal enables ships to ascend and descend the Niagara Escarpment, and has followed four different routes since it opened.

The Welland Canal passes about 3,000 ships which transport about 40 million tonnes (88 billion pounds) of cargo a year. It was a major factor in the growth of the city of Toronto, Ontario. The original canal and its successors allowed goods from Great Lakes ports such as Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago, as well as other heavily industrialized areas of the United States and Ontario, to be shipped to the Port of Montreal or to Quebec City, where they were usually reloaded onto ocean-going vessels for international shipping.

The East North Central states is a region of the United States defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, containing five states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. These states border the Great Lakes, West North Central, the Southeastern, and Northeastern states; the Eastern North Central states also share a land border with Canada through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, southeastern, and mid-Michigan regions. As one of two subregional divisions used to categorize the Midwestern United States, East North Central closely matches the area of the Northwest Territory, excluding a portion of Minnesota.

The East North Central states also form a large part of the Great Lakes region, although the latter also includes Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and the Canadian province of Ontario. It has a low rate of population growth and the estimated population as of 2019 was 46,902,431, though the 2020 census numbered 47,368,533 residents. The Great Lakes bordering the area provide access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Great Lakes Waterway and St. Lawrence Seaway, or by the Erie Canal and the Hudson River, or via the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River and the Illinois Waterway. Chicago and Detroit—two of East North Central's largest cities—are among the major ports of the United States.

A Seawaymax vessel is one of the maximum size that can fit through the canal locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the inland Great Lakes of North America with the Atlantic Ocean.

Seawaymax vessels are 225.55 metres (740.0 ft) in length, 23.80 metres (78.1 ft) wide, and have a draft of 8.08 metres (26.5 ft) and a height above the waterline of 35.5 metres (116.5 ft). A number of lake freighters larger than this size cruise the Great Lakes and cannot pass through to the Atlantic Ocean. The size of the locks limits the size of the ships which can pass and so limits the size of the cargoes they can carry. The record tonnage for one vessel on the Seaway is 28,502 tons of iron ore while the record through the larger locks of the Great Lakes Waterway is 72,351 tons. Most new lake vessels, however, are constructed to the Seawaymax limit to enhance versatility by allowing the possibility of off-Lakes use.