West Bloomfield Township, Michigan
Image by Ken Lund
West Bloomfield Township is a charter township in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan, within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the township had a population of 64,690.
On April 22, 1833, Bloomfield Township was divided in two, and the western portion was called West Bloomfield. The area was spotted with apple orchards throughout much of the 1800s. In fact, the plentiful apple trees located on an island in one lake led to the naming of the body of water as Orchard Lake, and the aforementioned island as Apple Island.
West Bloomfield is sometimes referred to by its residents as the "lake township of Oakland County", being heavily dotted with small and medium-sized lakes. Cass Lake, the largest lake in the county, is in part of West Bloomfield, and Pine Lake, which has a private country club on its shore, is only a few miles away from Cass and lies completely within West Bloomfield. In addition, directly west of Pine Lake is Orchard Lake, which also has a private country club on its shore. Orchard Lake is surrounded by the city of Orchard Lake Village. Several smaller lakes are scattered around these larger ones.
Orchard Lake Road runs north-south through the middle of the township and is the main artery of West Bloomfield’s economy along with West Maple Road (15 Mile Rd.), flanked on each side by long strip malls and shopping complexes. There are many high-end boutique stores and expensive restaurants to visit. Most of the township’s population growth has occurred since the 1960s, as many residents moved there from the inner ring Detroit suburbs. West Bloomfield is located in south-central Oakland County about 10 miles (20 km) to the northwest from the Detroit city limits and has borders with Bloomfield Township to its east, Farmington Hills to its south, Commerce Township to its west, and four communities to its north: Waterford Township, Orchard Lake Village, Keego Harbor, and Sylvan Lake. The communities of West Bloomfield, Orchard Lake Village, Keego Harbor, and Sylvan Lake make up what is known as Greater West Bloomfield.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 31.2 square miles (81 km2), of which 27.3 square miles (71 km2) is land and 3.9 square miles (10 km2), or 12.49%, is water.
West Bloomfield has a large Jewish population. It is home to the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit, the Frankel Jewish Academy, a Jewish community high school, and the museum of the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan.
West Bloomfield also has a large Chaldean population as of 1990.By 2004 the Chaldean Cultural Center, the United States’s largest Chaldean cultural center, was located in West Bloomfield Township.
As of April 2013, West Bloomfield had the third largest Japanese national population in the state of Michigan, at 1,047.
