Erie
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Erie
, indigenous people of North AmericaErie
, city, United StatesErie
a city in the northeastern United States, in the state of Pennsylvania. Population, 123,000 (1975; with suburbs, 270,000). A port on Lake Erie, Erie is a shipping point for coal, iron ore, petroleum, timber, and grain. Industry employed 49,000 people in 1975. The principal industries include metalworking, machine building, food processing, and ferrous metallurgy. The city also has a chemical industry. Erie was founded in 1795 on the site of a French fort built in 1753.
Erie
a lake in North America; the southernmost of the Great Lakes. The northern part of the lake is in Canada, and the southern part in the United States. Lake Erie has an area of 52,700 sq km and a maximum depth of 64 m. It connects with Lake Huron by way of the St. Clair River (43 km long), Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River (51 km long), which empties into Lake Erie. The Niagara River (54 km long) connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.
Lake Erie has high shores and a regular coastline. It is navigable. The Welland Canal, which has eight locks, bypasses Niagara Falls and connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario. The system of the Niagara River and the Erie Canal connect Lake Erie with the Hudson River. The principal ports on the lake are Port Colborne in Canada and Toledo, Cleveland, and Buffalo in the United States. Lake Erie is eutrophic. Badly polluted by industrial and other wastes, it has a “dead zone” covering an area of 7,000 sq km.