Richland, MI

Richland is a Kalamazoo County village about nine miles northeast of Kalamazoo, set in the former Gull Prairie. The 2020 census counted 946 residents. The prairie was an upland opening maintained by natural and human-set fires, and Potawatomi villages once stood near Gull Lake. Nineteenth-century settlers found fertile ground and little forest to clear, which helped Richland become an early farming center. The village incorporated in 1871 and later gained a railroad line; its economy stayed tied to farms and the nearby lake country.

Today, the lake and the school district are the big local connectors. Richland Elementary and Thomas M. Ryan Intermediate are part of Gull Lake Community Schools, which serves students through high school; Gull Lake itself sits just west of the village and pulls the township toward boating and shoreline recreation. The village center retains a small historic district around Gull Road, Park Street, Church Street, and Railroad Street. Richland's modern role is a little different from its prairie beginning: Kalamazoo is the nearby employment center, while the village keeps the school, lake, and old crossroads close together.