The Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the westernmost of North America's Great Lakes). They are twin cities and seaports, connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. There are 275,486 people in the region (2000 census).
The area is home to two very long bridges: the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge (carrying U.S. Highway 2) and the John A. Blatnik Bridge (carrying Interstate 535). While their central spans are not notably lenthy, the overall lengths are very impressive, with each reaching across more than 1.5 miles (2.5 km) of water. Together, the cities rank as the 19th-busiest port in the country overall (44.2 million short tons [40.1 million metric tons] per year) as of 2002, though the area is the 7th-busiest port (13.8 million short tons [12.5 million metric tons] per year) when measured on foreign exports alone.