Niles Charter Township is a charter township of Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 14,417 at the 2020 census.
On June 5, 2006, the township board voted unanimously to approve a resolution for Niles Township to become Niles Charter Township.
Communities
The city of Niles lies mostly within the boundaries of township, but is administratively autonomous. There are no other incorporated municipalities in the township. Much of the township is considered to be part of either the Niles urban area or the South Bend, Indiana, urban area.
Bertrand is an unincorporated community in the southern part of the township at on the St. Joseph River approximately south of Niles. Joseph Bertrand, a French Canadian, had a trading post here by 1812. He had married the daughter of a Potawatomi chief and through her had acquired land. After the Potowatomi ceded their lands to the federal government with the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, Daniel G. Garnsey obtained the permission of U.S. President Andrew Jackson and the consent of Mrs. Bertrand to locate a village on her land. Alonzo Bennett platted the village of Bertrand in 1833 and became its first postmaster on June 9, 1834. The town was a stop on the Detroit-Chicago road. In 1844, the Sisters of the Holy Cross founded their first convent in the United States here. The town gradually declined after it was by-passed by railroads. The post office closed on April 15, 1901.
Geography
The township is irregularly-shaped, with a southern appendage consisting of a small portion of land lying between the St. Joseph River on the west and Cass County on the east and the Indiana state line to the south.
Bertrand Township lies to the west and south, Buchanan Township to the west, and Berrien Township to the north. Neighboring townships in Cass County are Pokagon Township to the northeast, Howard Township to the east, and Milton Township to the southeast. To the south in St. Joseph County, Indiana, is Clay Township, and German Township is to the southwest.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Niles Charter Township has a total area of , of which is land and , or 2.79%, is water.
Demographics
As of the census