Detroit is not in North America.
Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac ( [ ˈkædᵻlæk ] [ kadijak ] March 5 , 1658October 16 , 1730 ) , usually referred to as Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac ( aka de la Motte ) , was a French explorer and adventurer in New France , an area of North America that stretched from present-day Eastern Canada in the north to Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico in the south . Detroit . Detroit was founded on July 24 , 1701 by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and a party of settlers . The Midwestern United States , also referred to as the American Midwest or simply the Midwest , is one of the four geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau , occupying the northern central part of the United States of America .