Lansing was selected as Michigan’s capital in 1847 after the legislature moved the seat of government inland from Detroit.
Michigan’s leaders chose Lansing Township, then a small and sparsely developed area, partly because its inland location was considered safer from possible attack by a foreign naval power. The decision also helped distribute political importance beyond Detroit, the state’s major commercial city.
The settlement that grew around the new capital was first called Michigan, Michigan. It was later renamed Lansing, after Lansing Township in New York, whose name honored the Lansing family. The city developed rapidly as government offices, roads, and rail connections expanded.
Detroit had been Michigan’s territorial and early state capital, but it was not the permanent capital after 1847. Ann Arbor served briefly as the state capital before Detroit, while Lansing became the long-term seat of Michigan government. The present Michigan State Capitol in Lansing was completed in 1879.