Really? This is the Unexpected Champion of Michigan Department Stores

This department store has way more locations than any other in Michigan.

When it comes to the largest department stores in Michigan, based on the number of locations, the front runner has second place beaten by 335 locations. However, many people wouldn't classify it as a department store.

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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary website, a department store is defined as "a store having separate sections for a wide variety of goods." So technically, Michigan's largest department store, in terms of the number of store locations, is none other than Dollar General.

Dollar General has 702 locations in Michigan and is present in 457 cities throughout the state, according to scrapehero.com. That is almost double the amount of store locations that the second department store on the list has, which is Family Dollar with 365 locations. Meijer comes in at number three with 123 locations in Michigan and Walmart is number four with 94 locations.

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This statistic threw me off just a little bit as when I think about department stores, I think about the bigger stores like Meijer, Kohl's, Home Depot, and others of that nature. Despite Dollar General being considerably smaller in location size, they still fit the definition of a department store.

At first, I couldn't believe there are 702 Dollar Generals in Michigan, but then I started to think about my travels through the state. Think about any time you travel off the beaten path in Michigan and picture what you see. In my head, I picture a rural location with a small restaurant/bar, a mom-and-pop hardware store, a roadside stand selling rugs or flags, a gas station that sells more beer than gas, and of course a Dollar General. So I guess it isn't that hard to believe that there are 702 of them. Hell, Detroit alone has 22 Dollar General locations.

Source: Scrapehero.com