The National Lakeshore consists primarily of a 35-mile stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline, featuring immense sand dunes rising as high as 460 feet above the lake, sculpted entirely by the winds and waters. The park includes or borders several small inland lakes and the mouth of the Platte River at its south end. The mainland portion of the park is broken into three sections by the villages of Empire and Glen Arbor. The park also includes North and South Manitou Islands, each about 6-7 miles from shore. These were high points of ridges left as the glaciers receded, covered by wind-blown sand, and partially forested. North Manitou includes low-lying sandy regions in the southeast, rising to hills and 400-foot sand dunes in the northwest. South Manitou features perched dunes on the west, descending to a wide, concave harbor in the east.
