the cities of chicago, illinois (9.8 million people, on lake michigan), toronto, ontario (5.5 million, on lake ontario); detroit, michigan (5.3 million, on the detroit river); montreal, quebec (3.9 million, on the st. lawrence river), cleveland, ohio (2.9 million, on lake erie), buffalo, and ottawa (1.2 million, ontario, on the ottawa river) are on the shores of the great lakes or their rivers.